Publications

Habitat diversity and heterogeneity play a fundamental role in structuring ecological communities. Dam emplacement and removal can fundamentally alter habitat characteristics, which in turn can affect associated biological communities. Beginning in the early 1900s, the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams in Washington, USA, withheld an estimated 30 million tonnes of sediment from river, coastal...

In 1992, Snake River basin fall Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) were listed for protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (NMFS 1992) and the population remained below 1000 individuals until 2000. Since then, returns from natural production has rebounded to over 20,000 spawners owing to a host of factors including reduced harvest (Peters et al. 2001), stable minimum...

Acoustic cameras were used to assess the behavior and abundance of bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus)-size fish at the entrance to the North Fork Reservoir juvenile fish floating surface collector (FSC). The purpose of the FSC is to collect downriver migrating juvenile salmonids at the North Fork Dam, and safely route them around the hydroelectric projects. The objective of the acoustic...

Condit Dam, at river kilometer 5.3 on the White Salmon River, Washington, was breached in 2011 and removed completely in 2012, allowing anadromous salmonids access to habitat that had been blocked for nearly 100 years. A multi-agency workgroup concluded that the preferred salmonid restoration alternative was natural recolonization with monitoring to assess efficacy, followed by a...

Executive Summary Populations of the once abundant Lost River (Deltistes luxatus) and shortnose suckers (Chasmistes brevirostris) of the Upper Klamath Basin, decreased so substantially throughout the 20th century that they were listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1988. Major landscape alterations, deterioration of water quality, and competition with and predation by exotic species...

Pacific lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus), an anadromous ectoparasite, faces several challenges during adult migration to spawning grounds. Developing methods to address these challenges is critical to the success of ongoing conservation efforts. The challenges are diverse, and include anthropogenic alterations to the ecosystem resulting in loss of habitat, impassable barriers such as...

Infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV) is an important pathogen of salmonid fishes. A validated universal reverse transcriptase quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) assay that can quantify levels of IHNV in fish tissues has been previously reported. In the present study, we adapted the published set of IHNV primers and probe for use in a reverse-transcriptase droplet digital PCR (RT-ddPCR)...

Methods for a plaque neutralization test (PNT) were optimized for the detection and quantification of viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV) neutralizing activity in the plasma of Pacific Herring Clupea pallasii. The PNT was complement dependent, as neutralizing activity was attenuated by heat inactivation; further, neutralizing activity was mostly restored by the addition of...

For some parts of the Nation, large-scale development of groundwater has caused decreases in the amount of groundwater that is present in aquifer storage and that discharges to surface-water bodies. Water supply in some areas, particularly in arid and semiarid regions, is not adequate to meet demand, and severe drought is affecting large parts of the United States. Future water demand is...

The return of tidal inundation to over 750 acres of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge (NNWR) in fall of 2009 was the crowning moment in the effort to protect and restore the Nisqually Delta. The Nisqually NWR project complemented three earlier restoration projects completed by the Nisqually Indian Tribe (Tribe) on tribal property to...

The invasive Asian clam Corbicula fluminea was introduced to North America in the 1930s and now inhabits most regions of the conterminous United States; however, the distribution and ecology of C. fluminea in the Columbia River Basin is poorly understood. During 2013 and 2014, 5 Columbia-Snake River reservoirs were sampled monthly from May through September, along with 23 additional...

Fish die-offs are important signals in tropical marine ecosystems. In 2010, a mass mortality of pufferfish in Hawaii (USA) was dominated by Arothron hispidus showing aberrant neurological behaviors. Using pathology, toxinology, and field surveys, we implicated a series of novel, polar, marine toxins as a likely cause of this mass mortality. Our findings are striking in that (1) a marine...