Review of the past censuses

[Rafael Eggli]

Hello everyone,

As I had done before, I am going to give here an update on the census evaluation I have been running for the past two years. This might come a little late but since soon we will ask again to participate in the census, I think it is good to see what the data generated so far can tell us and also it is interesting to see the developments of the project over the past years.

In this report, I will give the overview over the last year 2016. I used to do it right after every single census but the longer picture is perhaps more impressive and developments can be shown more clearly if two sets of data are newly available.

Now for those interested something on the methods (If you are not interested, skip this paragraph):
I evaluated the data published in the census every half year. The data presented here always considers breeding pairs. I define a breeding pair as one male and one female of the same species/variety of Parosphromenus with respect to their origin. A pair is only counted if the breeder/keeper has reported them as surely being a male or a female. Every individual reported is only counted once. Hence, if 3 males and 10 females are being reported, this counts as 3 breeding pairs. Juveniles and individuals of undetermined sex are not considered and so are species that have been reported but no breeding pair according to the above definition was mentioned (e.g. every keeper reported only one sex in hi stock). The raw data are also available if anyone is particularly interested. I will here mainly focus on some graphs that I have generated from it. These were generated with the help of microsoft excell.

So here we go:

[Rafael Eggli]

I want to give the reader an overview on the development and I will discuss the results in the last section.

Firstly, I have plotted the total amount of reported breeding pairs and the amount of species and varieties present in the stock of our members versus the time (the number on the bottom represents the number of the respective census e.g. 12 is April 2016 and 13 October 2016 :

The trend clearly goes upwards and I was happy to find that in April 2016 for the first time we had more than 500 reported pairs.

This graph directly relates to the next one which shows the number of breeding pairs per species that have been reported in average. I will comment on that more destinctively later:

Also here, the trend goes upwards despite some fluctuation.

Now I am getting to an important graph to discuss the success of the Parosphromenus project:
We want to keep the species we have as safely as possible and for a long time. Here I show the number of species that were lost versus the number of newly introduced species over the past years
We have definitely improved here because in the first years, the fluctuations were huge. Many species were lost but also many new ones came here. It is a success that in the years 2015 and 2016, always there were more species newly introduced or reintroduced to the project than were lost. It must be one of our very first goals to ensure that as few species are lost as possible.

[Rafael Eggli]

Now I go on with another aspect that the census has (unfortunately shown):

The quota of participants used to be great in the beginning when we were easily hitting the 50or 60 members that reported their stock. But over the years, we have lost ground there. This means that less people are reporting more animals since as we have learned already, the total amount of pairs has gone up in the same time.

Nevertheless, I am hoping that in the census which will soon be announced for April 2017, we will hit the 50 again and that this factor will improve in the future. I hope that I will be able to contribute to that by sharing this evaluation with you. Please mobilise everyone you know they do not participate usually to participate for the good of the liquorice gouramis.

I am now getting to the last part of this evaluation which focusses on some exemplary species. We have a few species and varieties that are kept and bred extremely well and this is amazing. However, Others are only present with a few members and it is likely that they might disappear in the near future. In the next plot, I summarise the situation of the whole number of species reported over the years.

The graph needs a little explanation:
We can see the amount of species that belong to the so called groups of endangerment. It is clear that the fewer pairs of one species is present, the more vulnerable this species or variety is. Therefore, we can see in the darkest red those species that are presently only represented by 1-3 breeding pairs. These might face extinction in captivity soon. The lighter the graph gets, the more pairs are reported. The other groups are 4-8 pairs, 9-20 pairs which is relatively safe and 21+ pairs. We find two trends here:

-firstly, more species are at the top. We never had so many species in more than 21 pairs and therefore mostly secure.
-on the other hand, there are also more species than ever in the lowest group.

This all goes hand in hand with the strongly reduced groups in the middle. Some species seem to find large popularity, perhaps these are also easily breedable. Others seem to vanish slowly but surely. We must therefore strengthen the “middle” so that more species will get to the top parts. and we must make sure that those strongly endangered species are bred again.

Now I want to end with a series of Graphs that show the development of the single species over the past two years. I want to stress you attention to five species i have marked yellow in the graphs.
These species, namely quindecim, phoenicurus, bintan, spec. aff. linkei Pangkaraya, rubrimontis and linkei, mostly from the commercial trade (ct.) have experienced the above mentioned development. They now account for more than 60% of the total stock of pairs as can be seen in the last graph from October 2016:

It is most remarkable that these five species and varieties are able to constantly keep at the good level. This is definitely a sign for actual success of the Parosphromenus project. However, as mentioned before, we must make sure that this species that are not so well represented in our stocks are constantly bred and find their way as for example rubrimontis has done.

[Rafael Eggli]

So… thats it for today. I hope some people will read this and maybe realise why it is important for us to participate in the census. If you have any further suggestions for the evaluation, questions or other comments, be welcome!

The graphs show that we are actiually progressing pretty well. Nevertheless I hope that more participants to the census will be found in April this year.

Also it would be interesting to learn about your theories on the development of the five mentioned species… Do you think there is something special to these five and if so what is it?
Could we find other species that relate in any kind to these specialities and that are likely to show the same future developments?
Also, what should be done for those species that seem to be vanishing?

I am looking forwards to reading your comments!

Greetings Rafael

[helene schoubye]

Hi Rafael.
I must say I find this incredibly fine work, – it was very very interesting to read, and it becomes for me a lot easier to really understand how to measure what we are doing.
I think in the future it should be a very helpful instrument for us.
The species that seem to be doing well, the five you mention, – for each of those there may be a clear reason why, but the same.
Linkei may be because linkei simply is easier and happier to spawn than other species. Certainly for myself I have no problems maintaining my stock of these.
phoenicurus was importet in numbers, and there also was a very specific attention paid to this import, and many members were quick to act
quindecim, – I think the explanation here is one breeder, who is extremely dedicated to this species, – if this person was not active, – I wonder what the picture would be for quindecim.
bintan – I would think that is because theres a lot of perhaps ‘unknown’ species which comes close (but may not be) bintan. I am not sure the numbers in census representing bintan are really all bintan – ?

What I mean to say, is that I am not sure there is the same explanation for these. And then its difficult to say which other species would likely show the same development in the future.
Perhaps for some of them – linkei and quindecim there might be a common trait, being that they produce good and stable offspring numbers. One species which I have found lately to do a little bit of the same is the p.tweediei (ruinemans 2013). This species also attracted some attention at some point, became ‘known’ and is as far as I know spread somewhat to dedicated people, – and it is not too difficult to breed. I just had a new ‘big’ batch of fry from this species. So maybe ?

The other species, those that seem to be vanishing, – well, – with those I think there would have to be some kind of ‘analysis’ made, because some may be more threatened than others, and the only thing I can think of is that the specific owners of these species has to become aware of the threats to them, and try to work harder on assisting these species multiply.
From my own experience, I can only say, that some years ago, I chose to always have p.parvulus. I haven’t bred a lot, but I will always keep at least 5 separate pairs of this species. And a couple of years ago I then (at a low point in Census) brought some to Bernd, who then produced a lot from these. That way it has made sense that I kept these parvulus as a ‘reserve’ sort of.
At this time I also have some p.anjunganensis, which I am very aware of is really in danger of disappearing, – so I do try now to set up special breeding tanks and encourage this species to breed (unfortunately they dont seem to at the moment)
Perhaps with this experience you can say, that I think really dedicated breeders are necessary to concentrate or be dedicated to a few species, and maintain these always.
This is not so much different from what I think we have done in the project for a long time, and I am certainly not the only one ‘holding’ on to some of these threatened species. We of course also then need really good breeders as Bernd, who can receive a few pairs and really make the numbers grow.

Well, this is just a few comments and ideas of mine, I hope we will also continue this debate in Hamburg, – and again, I really think your work is great. Thank you very much

[Rafael Eggli]

Dear Helene,

thank you for that comment!

Yes you are definitely right in what you say about these five species being so well…

Maybe I should also include some more basic data.
Therefore, I have sorted all present species according to the number of breeding pairs:

Here, you can find also those species that are the most endangered.

Also, I want to include the full batch of data that shows every single datapoint for every species on every census: Here, developments for individual species are better visible.

You are also right that some species are very frequent with a few keepers. That is especially true for quindecim. Nevertheless, the total of over 100 pairs is by about one fourth caused by other keepers. So if it were not for this one person, quindecim would still be among the well off.

And yes I am looking forwards to talking about this issue in Hamburg again!

[helene schoubye]

Just a little thought … – for example the quindecim, – as you mention, its not just one breeder, – but I wonder if many of those other people who also breed quindecim has their fish from the first breeder :)… I mean, it is natural in one way, that if theres one person being constant and breeding numerous, – then its easier to spred this species to other people … ?

[Peter Finke]

Great work again, Rafael.
This must be one issue of our discussions in Hamburg 2017. Please, prepare a presentation (max. half an hour) of these diagrams.
Possible topics of discussion:
– What are the highlights and – maybe – shortcomings in this investigation?
– What does it mean for the future of the census-method?
– Do we need similar parallel investigations into other aspects of our work?
Peter Finke

[Rafael Eggli]

Deal Peter,

It Wohls be an Honorar Form eines to präsent the Resultat in Hamburg. Ba Thun I will have addiert also the Resultat of the upcoming April-Census.

Greetings

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