Publications

Objective Black Carp Mylopharyngodon piceus is an emerging invasive species in North America with an expanding population in the Mississippi River basin. Current aging methods use a suite of structures for age estimation, and a single structure is needed to minimize processing time, to maximize consistency of age and growth measurements, and to allow for back-calculation of individual...

Desert spring systems of the American southwest hold high local fish endemism and are ranked among the most threatened ecosystems in the world. The prioritization of conservation resources to protect species living within these arid landscapes requires knowledge of species abundance and distribution. The plight of Conchos pupfish (Cyprinodon eximius) is representative of freshwater...

Sicklefin (Macrhybopsis meeki) and sturgeon chub (M. gelida) historically occurred throughout the Missouri River (MR), in some tributaries, and Mississippi River downstream of the MR. They have been species of U.S. state-level conservation concern and U.S. Endangered Species Act listing candidates since the 1990s. We applied analytical approaches from occupancy modeling to correlation to

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are ubiquitous and persistent environmental contaminants originating from many everyday products. Perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) are two PFAS that are commonly found at high concentrations in aquatic environments. Both chemicals have previously been shown to be toxic to fish, as well as having complex and...

Efficient biodiversity surveys are critical for successful restoration monitoring and management. We studied the effect of varying sampling effort on the observed species richness of surveys of small mammals (trapping transects), bats (passive acoustic detection), and medium to large mammals (trail cameras). Field studies provided mammalian biodiversity data for 4 bottomland hardwood...

Sand bedforms are fundamental habitat elements for benthic fish in large, sand-bedded rivers and are hypothesized to provide flow refugia, food transport, and ecological disturbance. We explored bedform distributions and dynamics in the Lower Missouri River, Missouri, with the objective of understanding the implications of these features for benthic fish habitat, particularly for the...

We used trail cameras to monitor human visits and activities at two sites in northeast Indiana being restored to bottomland hardwood forests. These sites, managed as nature preserves, are close to cities, where trails and parking lots have been added for ease of access. In this study, trail cameras were successfully used to capture visitation rates and activity types. The two sites had...

Tetragnathid spiders have been used as sentinels to study the biotransport of contaminants between aquatic and terrestrial environments because a significant proportion of their diet consists of adult aquatic insects. A key knowledge gap in assessing tetragnathid spiders as sentinels is understanding the consistency of the year-to-year relationship between contaminant concentrations in...

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are frequently detected in marine environments, posing a threat to aquatic organisms. Our previous research demonstrated the occurrence of neuroactive compounds in effluent and sediments from a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in a fjord North of Stavanger, the fourth-largest city in Norway. To better understand the influence of PPCP...

Pollinator diversity and abundance are declining globally. Cropland agriculture and the corresponding use of agricultural pesticides may contribute to these declines, while increased pollinator habitat (flowering plants) can help mitigate them. Here we tested whether the relative effect of wildflower plantings on pollinator diversity and counts were modified by proportion of nearby...

Long-term wildland fire retardants are one important tool used to control and suppress wildfires. During suppression activities, these retardants may enter waterbodies; thus, there is a need to understand their potential effects to aquatic biota. We investigated the effect of three current-use wildland fire retardants to juvenile rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) survival in short...

Although concerns about the impacts of antibiotics in aquatic organisms are reported worldwide, the potential adverse effects on fish gut microbial communities and fish health are still not well known. In this study, we investigated the effects of florfenicol (FFC) on the gut microbiome and gastrointestinal (GIT) gene expression in juvenile Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Three doses of...