AgKnowledge-2021FINAL-Accessible.pdf — PaddleOCR-VL (Baidu)

One Fish, Two Fish, HYBRID FISH

Sturddlefish, a biological curiosity, created with help of Kentucky State aquaculture professor

sturgeon eggs. Their control group was crossing untreated paddlefish milt with a Russian sturgeon egg.

“The expectation was that nothing would happen,” Dr. Semmens said.

But something did: The paddlefish milt and the Russian sturgeon egg created a hybrid—which someone later nicknamed the sturddlefish. The creation of a hybrid in this experiment when one had never been created before is likely due to the differences between Russian and American sturgeon. One key difference is that the Russian sturgeon is a tetraploid, while the American sturgeon—what Dr. Semmens and other American researchers had used—is a diploid.

W hen he heard that a hybrid of a sturgeon and paddlefish had been bred, Kentucky State University aquaculture professor Dr. Ken Semmens' reaction was "No, I don't believe it."

The hybrid fish, which has been dubbed the sturddlefish, is a byproduct of research that Dr. Semmens and others have been working on for decades.

Since the 1980s, Dr. Semmens and his colleagues had been working with sturgeon and paddlefish in an attempt to increase caviar production, which means creating an all-female population. They were activating paddlefish eggs with American sturgeon milt in a process called gynogenesis, through which all chromosomes come from the female parent.

Some researchers in Hungary, with whom Dr. Semmens has worked over the years, were working on this experiment in reverse: They used paddlefish milt to activate Russian

The hybrid was a surprise to everyone who had worked with these fish before.

“You must be mistaken. No, no, I don’t believe it’— that’s the reaction,” Dr. Semmens said. “But, as a scientist, you say, ‘Where’s the evidence?’” And the evidence was there—like a new version of a liger, a lion crossed with a tiger.

The existence of the sturddlefish does not immediately fulfill the goal of producing more caviar, so the hybrid’s purposes are not yet clear. At the very least, Dr. Semmens said, it’s “a biological curiosity.”

“The expectation was that nothing would happen.”

-Dr. Ken Semmens, aquaculture professor

Kentucky State students benefit from research opportunities

Students at the undergraduate and graduate level can, and are encouraged to, participate in research at Kentucky State University.

Graduate student James Brown and undergraduate student Dawson Armstrong have both taken advantage of research opportunities. Brown is earning his master's degree in aquatic sciences and should graduate in the fall. His research is in collaboration with another graduate student at the University of Kentucky. Armstrong is a fourth-year student majoring in agriculture, food and environment with a concentration in aquaculture. Armstrong's research placed third in the Kentucky Academy of Sciences agriculture competition in 2020.

student majoring in agriculture, food and environment with a concentration in aquaculture. Armstrong’s research placed third in the Kentucky Academy of Sciences agriculture competition in 2020.

Both have conducted research on floating raceway systems, a method of producing fish that has gained “lots of attention in the last several decades and has been adopted throughout the country,” Brown said.

Raceway systems have continuously flowing water, which sets them apart from other production systems and removes waste as it replenishes water content and overall water quality, Brown explained. “With these added benefits, a producer can produce much more fish than the more traditional systems like pond culture.”