A Florida sixth-grader has impressed scientists with her school project on invasive lionfish, but there's just one problem, a recent Ph.D. graduate who's dedicated years to studying the fish says; the young girl has pinched his work.
Sixth-grader Lauren Arrington had caught the attention of marine biologists -- and the media -- with her science fair project showing how far the poisonous and invasive marine lionfish could move up estuaries and survive in ever fresher water.
However, Zack Jud, who recently received a doctorate from Florida International University, say Arrington, possibly helped by her father, has stolen his research work he completed in 2011 on low-salinity estuaries and presented it as her own.
Jud, who has spent a great portion of his academic career studying lionfish, says he wants credit where it's due, and is upset that Arrington's name is the one showing up in news stories and on the Internet after a scientific journal cited her project.
"My name has been intentionally left out of the stories, replaced by the name of the 12-year-old daughter of my former supervisor's best friend," Jud wrote on Facebook. "The little girl did a science fair project based on my PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED DISCOVERY of lionfish living in low-salinity estuarine habitats."
In response, Arrington's father, Dr. Albrey Arrington, a fish ecologist, charges Jud is a frustrated academic who is besmirching his daughter's name.
Lauren Arrington is not claiming to have revealed lionfish can survive in low-salt environments, the father says, but rather has just taken Jud's research to a logical next step by finding out just how close to completely fresh waters lionfish can survive in.
Jud, for his part, says the fuss over Arrington's work surprised him given the lack of attention given to his own years of research that yielded similar findings.
"At this stage in my career, this type of national exposure would be invaluable," Jud said on Facebook.
"I feel like my hands are tied. Anything I say will come off as an attempt to steal a little girl's thunder, but it's unethical for her and her father to continue to claim the discovery of lionfish in estuaries as her own."
Lionfish, native to the Pacific and Indian Oceans, have been spreading through wide areas of the Atlantic and Caribbean in recent years, and probably came into the regions through the aquarium pet trade.
Possessing a mane of poisonous spines, lionfish can damage coral reefs and decimate native species, while they have no natural predators other than sharks or bigger lionfish.
