The study was designed to develop a new procedure for perfusion of brain and pituitary explants collected from three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) and round goby (Neogobius melanostomus). The procedure was elaborated for studies of arginine vasotocin (AVT) and isotocin (IT) release from explants of both species. AVT and IT, analogs of mammalian vasopressin and oxytocin, are neuroh...

The Laurentian Great Lakes are large dynamic aquatic ecosystems with a diversity of available habitats and associated fish communities. The increasing prevalence of invasive species has influenced habitat associations of native species and altered trophic relationships throughout the food webs. We sought to identify habitat and biotic relationships associated with common nearshore fish abundanc...

Cause-and-effect interpretations of the apparent impacts of biological invasions are confounded by the coincident occurrence of non-native species and changes to abiotic factors. Native community structure and function can vary greatly in space and time, owing to abiotic variables that could potentially be affected by non-native species. Here, we sought to determine the relative importance of a...

Reproductive traits are among the most important biological characteristics that facilitate or impede establishment of non-native fish into new environments. In several tributaries Lower River Danube (Bulgaria), round goby (Neogobius melanostomus Pallas, 1814) is a recent invader. Specimens from edge invasion front were collected monthly (March 2017 to May 2018) each river. The pioneer individu...