Black Bass Diversity: Multidisciplinary Science for Conservation

Foreword: Bringing Rare Species into Conservation Focus

doi: https://doi.org/10.47886/9781934874400.fmatter

Nearly 40 years ago, at the first black bass symposium, Childers (1975) recommended a committee be formed to protect the diversity of wild black basses, notably from genetic contamination due to stocking. The committee that assembled in order to convene these proceedings was, in many ways, a realization of that vision. We hope this volume will be considered the third contribution to a trilogy of black bass books, following the “Green Book” (Stroud and Clepper 1975) and “Black Bass 2000” (Philipp and Ridgway 2002), and serve as a testament to how much our understanding and appreciation of the lesser-known black bass species has improved. Not only have there been advancements in identifying previously unrecognized lineages of black bass diversity (a trend which is likely to continue in the future), but also improvements in our understanding of the unique ecology of many of the species that are rare or occupy small ranges. “Black Bass 2000” (Philipp and Ridgway 2002) included color plates that depicted each of the nine then-recognized species of Micropterus. Alabama Bass M. henshalli had not yet been described at that time and the book included a paper proposing that Florida Bass M. floridanus be considered a distinct species). However, the content was acknowledged to be primarily focused on just two species: Largemouth Bass M. salmoides and Smallmouth Bass M. dolomieu (Ridgway and Philipp 2002; Paukert 2003; Savitz 2004). Acknowledging the paucity of peer-reviewed studies on the rare black bass species, Koppelman and Garrett (2002) stated that “the inference could be made that there is little interest” in these species, but interest seemed to spike afterward. Since the publication of the second black bass symposium, several new species have been described (e.g., Alabama Bass by Baker et al. [2008]) and the amount of activity directed at some species has increased dramatically (e.g., Shoal Bass M. cataractae). Taking advantage of the interest and research on these species, we sought to compile and consolidate this information into a third national black bass symposium, with this book being the end result.