7017

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7017
• Author: Starnes, W. C.
• Title: Colorado River Basin
• USFW Year: 1989.
• Copyright Material: NO

PREFACE
The ensuing report is submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements of Phase I of the Colorado River Gila Taxonomy
Project being conducted under cooperative agreement (No. 14-16-
0006-89-913) between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the
Smithsonian Institution. These requirements included conducting
a review of existing information on the taxonomy and distribution
of fishes of the genus Gila in the Colorado River basin,
reporting on the activities of researchers who have been involved
with studies of this group, and assessing Gila collection
resources available at various institutions.. Additional
requirements of Phase I will be addressed in Part 2, to follow in
a few weeks, which will identify the priority needs for taxonomic
research which have evidenced themselves as the result of
synthesizing the information surveyed in Part 1 and outline a
research work plan to address those needs. Part 3, to accompany
Part 2, will provide guidelines and protocol for collection of
data to be analyzed in the course of that research. The
completion of these documents will facilitate the implementation
of the research phase (Phase II) of the Gila Taxonomy Project.
Part 1 is organized into three major divisions. Section 1
is a review of existing information on taxomony and distribution
of Gila spp, in the Colorado River basin. It takes the form of
an annotated bibliography in order to address pertinent
information in each reference deemed relevant to this study.
This may seem an overly rigorous approach to surveying the
information, as opposed to a simple synopsis, but it has enabled
the Project Manager to gain a much "finer grained" perspective on
the taxonomic problems encountered on a regional, local, and
specific investigator basis, as well as for stream-by-stream
historic and current distribution of Gila spp. A synopsis of
this information will appear in the background section of the
pending Research Work Plan. Section 2 is a brief treatment of
the past and current involvement of various investigators who
have addressed Colorado River Gila taxonomy in some respect.
Section 3 is a guide to collections resources of Gila specimens
acquired from the Colorado River basin over the past 150 years.
With regard to Section 1, out of the approximately one
thousand titles examined of publications and reports addressing
some aspect of Colorado River fishes or habitat, approximately
two hundred were deemed to be moderately to very relevant to the
Gila taxonomy study. Many references are reiterative of similar
information but are included for the sake of completeness and
because of their varied availability to different potential
investigators. Separate sections are included for taxonomic and
distributional references. Taxonomic references are arranged in
chronological sequence in order to lend a historical perspective
as to how the taxonomy of the group has evolved and the problems
encountered by recent investigators. Distributional references
are arranged by drainage basins and subbasins to facilitate
location of information about Gila species occurrence in