Oregon’s isolated Foskett Spring harbors a distinct population of Speckled Dace (Rhinichthys osculus) that was listed as federally threatened until recently. With funding from the Bureau of Land Management, we are harnessing reduced-representation genome sequencing to monitor the genetic health of this iconic population, determine which stream served as its source, and infer when dace colonized Foskett Spring. A future phase of the study will use digital morphometry of museum specimens to characterize the morphology of the stream and spring dace and reconstruct whether and how transition to the spring habitat altered their phenotype.
OS 22833: An adult Foskett Spring Speckled Dace collected during this study.