Mandarin Dragonet Research Help

[avanmg88]

Hi everyone! I am a college student and I'm working on a paper for my Ichthyology class and the topic is on the Mandarin Dragonet. I'm mainly writing about the biology, behavior, and effects it has on the aquarium trade (i.e. economic effect). If anyone is familiar with scientific papers or other credible sources that may be informative for any of these topics for the paper, please drop them below!

(The sources below could also help anyone else who wants to learn more about these wonderful fish before adding them to their home aquarium!)

 

[i cant think]

Hi everyone! I am a college student and I'm working on a paper for my Ichthyology class and the topic is on the Mandarin Dragonet. I'm mainly writing about the biology, behavior, and effects it has on the aquarium trade (i.e. economic effect). If anyone is familiar with scientific papers or other credible sources that may be informative for any of these topics for the paper, please drop them below!

(The sources below could also help anyone else who wants to learn more about these wonderful fish before adding them to their home aquarium!)

Most of the behaviour and such will be best from hobbyists who have kept and studied the species they own (In this case a dragonet). I’ve found yes some scientific paper is good but honestly, some of its often incorrect or outdated.

 

[Bpones]

Google scholar baby!

Google Scholar

scholar.google.com

 

[Bpones]

Most of the behaviour and such will be best from hobbyists who have kept and studied the species they own (In this case a dragonet). I’ve found yes some scientific paper is good but honestly, some of it’s often incorrect or outdated.

I have to push back a little tiny bit on this. As far as the questions presented, Bio, behavior, impact on aquarium trade, our observation of individual fish in our home aquaria are anecdotal and not valuable sources for a paper being presented at the college level.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

I have to push back a little tiny bit on this. As far as the questions presented, Bio, behavior, impact on aquarium trade, our observation of individual fish in our home aquaria are anecdotal and not valuable sources for a paper being presented at the college level.

But, what college student goes to a hobby forum asking people to find them research papers rather than doing this work themselves?

 

[Bpones]

But, what college student goes to a hobby forum asking people to find them research papers rather than doing this work themselves?

You got me there!

 

[i cant think]

I have to push back a little tiny bit on this. As far as the questions presented, Bio, behavior, impact on aquarium trade, our observation of individual fish in our home aquaria are anecdotal and not valuable sources for a paper being presented at the college level.

Or, studying the fish themselves is the best. As for behaviour, if you get 5-10, maybe 15-20 hobbyists who own this fish say the same thing;
They almost never stop eating, they hover more than actually swimming etc…

That in theory is better than a scientist who studied maybe one specimen and came back with something completely different.

 

[Bpones]

Or, studying the fish themselves is the best. As for behaviour, if you get 5-10, maybe 15-20 hobbyists who own this fish say the same thing;
They almost never stop eating, they hover more than actually swimming etc…

That in theory is better than a scientist who studied maybe one specimen and came back with something completely different.

I don’t mean to start a fight, what we observe in our tanks is very interesting and informative for us. But it’s not “research” in the academic sense.

Again, I don’t mean to be confrontational, I respect that what we observe in our home aquaria is useful to pass on to others who seek to be successful in keeping similar species. But if this student needs research for a college assignment, our personal observations won’t cut it. I feel strongly about this as I research in a fish morphology and behavior lab at a university. https://www.fishmorphandbehavior.org/
If any of my students were assigned a project to research the natural history and economic impacts of a species, I would have to remove marks if they came back to me with anecdotal observations from strangers on a online forum and not legitimate scientific studies.
That’s not to say what we do and observe isn’t valuable. It’s just not valuable to this individual. They need peer reviewed scientific publications.
Scientists study more than one specimen unless it’s a holotype and even then, they look at Many other specimens to confirm the finding that it Is a holotype. Some of my research spans Years and has hundreds of thousands of data points from direct observations of large wild populations. True scientific research goes through a review process, it’s statistically analyzed, the processes are approved by ethics committees and veterinarians. It’s not just one person with one fish making any given claim based on a few observations.
I do apologize if this has come across as snobbish or overly aggressive. I really don’t mean for it to be. I simply feel this student should seek out a more acceptable source of information for this project based on how they described it.

 

[Slocke]

I don’t mean to start a fight, what we observe in our tanks is very interesting and informative for us. But it’s not “research” in the academic sense.

Again, I don’t mean to be confrontational, I respect that what we observe in our home aquaria is useful to pass on to others who seek to be successful in keeping similar species. But if this student needs research for a college assignment, our personal observations won’t cut it. I feel strongly about this as I research in a fish morphology and behavior lab at a university. https://www.fishmorphandbehavior.org/
If any of my students were assigned a project to research the natural history and economic impacts of a species, I would have to remove marks if they came back to me with anecdotal observations from strangers on a online forum and not legitimate scientific studies.
That’s not to say what we do and observe isn’t valuable. It’s just not valuable to this individual. They need peer reviewed scientific publications.
Scientists study more than one specimen unless it’s a holotype and even then, they look at Many other specimens to confirm the finding that it Is a holotype. Some of my research spans Years and has hundreds of thousands of data points from direct observations of large wild populations. True scientific research goes through a review process, it’s statistically analyzed, the processes are approved by ethics committees and veterinarians. It’s not just one person with one fish making any given claim based on a few observations.
I do apologize if this has come across as snobbish or overly aggressive. I really don’t mean for it to be. I simply feel this student should seek out a more acceptable source of information for this project based on how they described it.

As a former teacher I certainly agree. Still begs the question why come here for info? My suggestion to the OP would be to use google scholar and if he is to use this forum to use us as public data. Poll us on success rates, captive bred vs wild caught success, etc.
I’d also add that so far the focus of this paper seems vague. There are many species in the genus some of which are called mandarins and some not. I’m not sure if there is a “mandarin” complex within the genus or if it is arbitrary naming. Either way focus on a single species or a complex if that exists. Synchiropus splendidus would be my suggestion.

 

[StatelineReefer]

I don’t mean to start a fight, what we observe in our tanks is very interesting and informative for us. But it’s not “research” in the academic sense.

Again, I don’t mean to be confrontational, I respect that what we observe in our home aquaria is useful to pass on to others who seek to be successful in keeping similar species. But if this student needs research for a college assignment, our personal observations won’t cut it. I feel strongly about this as I research in a fish morphology and behavior lab at a university. https://www.fishmorphandbehavior.org/
If any of my students were assigned a project to research the natural history and economic impacts of a species, I would have to remove marks if they came back to me with anecdotal observations from strangers on a online forum and not legitimate scientific studies.
That’s not to say what we do and observe isn’t valuable. It’s just not valuable to this individual. They need peer reviewed scientific publications.
Scientists study more than one specimen unless it’s a holotype and even then, they look at Many other specimens to confirm the finding that it Is a holotype. Some of my research spans Years and has hundreds of thousands of data points from direct observations of large wild populations. True scientific research goes through a review process, it’s statistically analyzed, the processes are approved by ethics committees and veterinarians. It’s not just one person with one fish making any given claim based on a few observations.
I do apologize if this has come across as snobbish or overly aggressive. I really don’t mean for it to be. I simply feel this student should seek out a more acceptable source of information for this project based on how they described it.

Funny story, the OP did not ask for firsthand accounts of Mandarin Dragonet ownership, they asked for references of scientific papers. So essentially, they asked the community to do their homework for them.

 

[Bpones]

As a former teacher I certainly agree. Still begs the question why come here for info? My suggestion to the OP would be to use google scholar and if he is to use this forum to use us as public data. Poll us on success rates, captive bred vs wild caught success, etc.
I’d also add that so far the focus of this paper seems vague. There are many species in the genus some of which are called mandarins and some not. I’m not sure if there is a “mandarin” complex within the genus or if it is arbitrary naming. Either way focus on a single species or a complex if that exists. Synchiropus splendidus would be my suggestion.

I agree, the vagueness of the description of the assignment strikes me more as an intro writing topic vs and ichthyology course.
I also wholeheartedly agree Google scholar is the way to go. I even added a link to Google scholar above so they could find the information they were looking for.

 

[Bpones]

Funny story, the OP did not ask for firsthand accounts of Mandarin Dragonet ownership, they asked for references of scientific papers. So essentially, they asked the community to do their homework for them.

Yeah, sadly, I see this in my classes often as well. I make sure in my intro course to familiarize students with Google scholar as somehow many make it out of high school totally unaware of it as a resource.
It’s why I didn’t feel unethical providing the link to Google scholar above vs providing journal articles directly.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Funny story, the OP did not ask for firsthand accounts of Mandarin Dragonet ownership, they asked for references of scientific papers. So essentially, they asked the community to do their homework for them.

EXACTLY!!!

 

[i cant think]

I don’t mean to start a fight, what we observe in our tanks is very interesting and informative for us. But it’s not “research” in the academic sense.

Again, I don’t mean to be confrontational, I respect that what we observe in our home aquaria is useful to pass on to others who seek to be successful in keeping similar species. But if this student needs research for a college assignment, our personal observations won’t cut it. I feel strongly about this as I research in a fish morphology and behavior lab at a university. https://www.fishmorphandbehavior.org/
If any of my students were assigned a project to research the natural history and economic impacts of a species, I would have to remove marks if they came back to me with anecdotal observations from strangers on a online forum and not legitimate scientific studies.
That’s not to say what we do and observe isn’t valuable. It’s just not valuable to this individual. They need peer reviewed scientific publications.
Scientists study more than one specimen unless it’s a holotype and even then, they look at Many other specimens to confirm the finding that it Is a holotype. Some of my research spans Years and has hundreds of thousands of data points from direct observations of large wild populations. True scientific research goes through a review process, it’s statistically analyzed, the processes are approved by ethics committees and veterinarians. It’s not just one person with one fish making any given claim based on a few observations.
I do apologize if this has come across as snobbish or overly aggressive. I really don’t mean for it to be. I simply feel this student should seek out a more acceptable source of information for this project based on how they described it.

Thankyou for explaining, and you didn’t come off as snobbish

Out of curiosity, would you remove marks if it was from personal views over several specimens?

 

[Bpones]

Thankyou for explaining, and you didn’t come off as snobbish

Out of curiosity, would you remove marks if it was from personal views over several specimens?

Oh good. Cheers to that. Communicating via text tends loose so much nuance to the conversation.
As to your question, I wouldn’t, so long as that’s explained and relevant. We often say, “based on the authors observations…”, or cite something as “unpublished data (name of researcher)”.
Most of our experimental questions begin with observations and a Lot of how I conduct care, housing, etc in the lab is directly based off my experiences in the hobby. It’s wild how often pure academics will be struggling with something that’s old hat for hobbiest. An example recently was with a fish physiology lab in our building. They were struggling with measuring metabolic rates in killifish over multiple days because when the lights came on via a timer, it was a straight “on” switch which startled the fish and made their O2 consumption (proxy for metabolism) dramatically increase. I lent them an old Current USA light with a ramp timer and it solved the problem for them and they invested in more of them. Hobbiest are a wealth of info for the scientific community. Reef2reef & Google scholar are both valuable resources to the curious mind.

 

[dodojojo]

It’s wild how often pure academics will be struggling with something that’s old hat for hobbiest.

Hobbiest are a wealth of info for the scientific community. Reef2reef & Google scholar are both valuable resources to the curious mind.

This^^^ I'm not a hobbyist myself and not necessarily an academic researcher (...yet) but hobbyists are my favorite source of info for problems. From a peer reviewed paper standpoint, forums aren't usable sources for info but in terms of experiments and ideas/problem-solving/etc who better to ask than people who do it for the pure joy of the hobby?
I joke that sometimes it's often more helpful to me to crowdsource from people who don't have (out of their hands) budget restrictions and don't need permission to try something new, rather than those in the industry who may be limited to a handful of procedures that have just always been the way.

That isn't to say stealing ideas from the public who don't publish is okay, always give credit where it's due but it is soo nice to have access to resources that are allowed to think and, more importantly, act outside the box.

 

[Paul B]

I am certainly not a scientist and do not have any scientific papers, but I have kept them and other dragonettes alive and spawning for their 10 year life span in my 50 year old reef tank. I invented this feeder for them often called a "Paul B Mandarin feeder".

It can keep them alive in a semi bare laboratory tank for a long time, but I would recommend a normal, natural tank and I have been keeping them since they came into the hobby.