The Case for Humboldtensis: A Subspecies Name for the Indigenous Cutthroat Trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii) of the Humboldt River, Upper Quinn River, and Coyote Basin Drainages, Nevada and Oregon

Abstract In the early years of his research on the native trouts of western North America, Behnke (1960, 1966, 1979) observed consistent differences in certain meristic characters between the cutthroat trout of the Humboldt River drainage and those from the Truckee, Carson, and Walker river drainages of the Lahontan Basin, and proposed that the Humboldt trout be recognized as a distinct subspecies. He coined the subspecies name humboldtensis, but a formal description was never published. Here we again present the early evidence for subspecific distinction of the Humboldt drainage cutthroat trout, and add more recent findings from the fields of population genetics and Pleistocene and recent zoogeography that support this interpretation. Based on this evidence, we offer a formal description of the cutthroat subspecies Oncorhynchus clarkii humboldtensis and map its likely historical distribution. Available meristic and zoogeographic evidence indicates that the native trouts of the upper Quinn River, Nevada and Oregon and the Coyote Basin of Oregon should be included with humboldtensis as well.

[1]  E. P. Pister.  Trout and Salmon of North America , 2005, Copeia.

[2]  V. Kirchoff,et al.  Assessing the Conservation Value of Hybridized Cutthroat Trout Populations in the Quinn River Drainage, Nevada , 2004 .

[3]  J. Rinne,et al.  Native trout of western North America , 1992, Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries.

[4]  H. Hattemer,et al.  Genetic distance between populations , 1982, Theoretical and Applied Genetics.

[5]  G. K. Sage,et al.  Population Genetic Structure in Lahontan Cutthroat Trout , 2002 .

[6]  S. Wesnousky,et al.  Isostatic rebound, active faulting, and potential geomorphic effects in the Lake Lahontan basin, Nevada and California , 1999 .

[7]  M. Reheis,et al.  High, old Pluvial Lakes of western Nevada , 1997 .

[8]  L. Benson,et al.  Carbonate deposition, Pyramid Lake subbasin, Nevada: 3. The use of 87Sr values in carbonate deposits (tufas) to determine the hydrologic state of paleolake systems , 1996 .

[9]  J. Mcphail.  Ecology and evolution of sympatric sticklebacks (Gasterosteus): morphological and genetic evidence for a species pair in Enos Lake, British Columbia , 1984 .

[10]  Eric J. Loudenslager,et al.  Geographic Patterns of Protein Variation and Subspeciation in Cutthroat Trout, Salmo Clarki , 1980 .

[11]  T. Zaret.  Predation and freshwater communities , 1980 .

[12]  R. Behnke.  Monograph of the native trouts of the genus Salmo of western North America. , 1979 .

[13]  Masatoshi Nei,et al.  Genetic Distance between Populations , 1972, The American Naturalist.

[14]  P. Mccart,et al.  Plasticity of Gillraker Number and Length in Oncorhynchus nerka , 1967 .

[15]  N. V. Martin,et al.  Pyloric Caeca and Gill Raker Development in Lake Trout, Salvelinus namaycush, in Algonquin Park, Ontario , 1967 .

[16]  D. S. Jordan.  Manual of the Vertebrates of the Northern United States, Including the District East of the Mississipi River and North of North Carolina and Tennessee, Exclusive of Marine Species , 1878, Nature.