Sixth-Grader’s Fish Project Blows Away Researchers

Sixth-grader Lauren Arrington’s science fair project on lionfish showed that they can live in nearly fresh water, which surprised ecologists.

Arrington’s results show that if lionfish migrate upstream in rivers, they could damage ecosystems because the lionfish don’t have any predators.

“Scientists were doing plenty of tests on them, but they just always assumed [the lionfish] were in the ocean,” Arrington said, according to NPR. “So I was like, ‘Well, hey guys, what about the river?’”

Lionfish are an invasive species with no known predators along the Florida coast, reports the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Because of the implications for estuaries should the venomous predators make their way inland, ecologist Craig Layman says scientists should have looked into this long ago and calls Lauren’s work “one of the most influential 6th-grade science projects ever conducted.”

His team has become the first to demonstrate that lionfish can live in water with a salinity of just 5 parts per million (ocean water is 35), and credits Lauren for coming up with the idea in the first place.

Lauren, meanwhile, had stopped testing when she got as low as 6 parts per million because one of the science fair rules was to keep the fish alive and she didn’t want to risk being disqualified.

Agencies/Canadajournal