Distribution of Rio Grande cutthroat trout alleles in the Forest Canyon basin, Rocky Mountain National Park

Rogers, Kevin; Kennedy, Christopher

The advent of new molecular methods have allowed for a flurry of research into the taxonomy of cutthroat trout (Loxterman et al. 2012, Houston et al. 2012) particularly in Colorado (Rogers 2008, Rogers 2010). Work by Metcalf et al. (2007, 2012) is particularly informative in that it demonstrates the ability of these molecular techniques to allow us to gain insight into the history of fish culture in the state when documentation of stocking events were not as rigorous. Movement of fish in the late 1800s and early 1900s appears to have occluded the native range of the various cutthroat trout lineages that call Colorado home (Metcalf et al. 2012). While most of the work has documented movement of lineages from west to east of the Continental Divide (Metcalf et al. 2007, Rogers 2010, Metcalf et al. 2012), researchers at the University of Colorado in Boulder discovered the presence of Rio Grande cutthroat trout (RGCT) alleles in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP; Martin 2008), well outside their native range. This finding was particularly noteworthy in that it represents the first molecular evidence of native trout being moved from the Rio Grande basin to other parts of the state. Our objective in this study was to confirm the presence of RGCT gene fragments in Forest Canyon and probe for their presence in surrounding waters.