Publications

Diadromous fishes world-wide experienced precipitous declines during the 19th and 20th centuries due to a combination of overfishing, pollution, and freshwater habitat loss through construction of dams (Limburg & Waldman, 2009). Following wide-spread fishing closures and large-scale remediation of many historical pollution sources, dams in coastal rivers remain as the largest tractable...

Freshwater salinization is a major concern in temperate climates where road salt is used as a deicer to manage snow and ice on roadways. In urban and suburban areas, wastewater, weathering of infrastructure, and salting on parking lots and sidewalks can also contribute to salt contamination, but little is known about how well these sources explain variation in stream conductivity and...

Understanding how water moves through a watershed is one of the most fundamental yet often complicated aspects of hydrology, especially in urban areas. Urban infrastructure and water management alter natural hydrological pathways in developed watersheds, which can violate assumptions of a watershed approach to ecosystem science. We focus on two aspects of urban landscapes that often...

River ecosystems are threatened by interactions among river regulation, non-native species, and climate change. Water use has exceeded supply in USA’s Colorado River basin draining its two largest storage reservoirs (Lake Powell and Lake Mead). In 2022, Lake Powell began releasing water from its lower epilimnion into the Grand Canyon segment of the Colorado River, which (1) increased...

Fish diseases in freshwater ecosystems pose significant ecological and socioeconomic challenges, yet monitoring them in wild populations is complex due to interactions between pathogens, hosts, and environmental conditions. We examine the prevalence and watershed-scale landscape drivers of external deformity, erosion, lesion, tumor, and parasite (DELT) anomalies in 57 riverine fish...

Passive acoustic monitoring is a cost-effective, minimally invasive technology commonly used to study behavior and population dynamics of soniferous fish species. To understand the strengths and limitations of acoustic monitoring for this purpose at fish spawning aggregations (FSA) requires an assessment of the variability in aggregation-associated sounds (AAS) as a function of time...

Studies involving individually marked animals provide insights predicated on the assumption marked individuals are accurate models of their unmarked counterparts. Taxa-specific and marker-specific examinations are needed to determine if marked animals are suitable models for the parameter(s) being measured. Our objective was to determine if brightly colored ear tags influenced the...

Introduction American black bears (Ursus americanus) have been documented to have top-down effects, both consumptive (through predation) and nonconsumptive (through fear effects). However, their behavioural and dietary adaptability has led to uncertainty about the conditions under which these may occur.Objectives We aimed to (1) investigate when, where, and how often black bears...

Water development and the proliferation of invasive riparian vegetation have led to widespread habitat loss and simplification of rivers in the western United States, contributing to the imperilment of native fishes. Here, we quantify channel narrowing and vegetation encroachment, which are conspicuous indicators of riverine habitat alteration, along ∼400 km of three dryland tributaries...

Four species of the fish genus Morone exist in North America and are often the focus of management actions, including propagation and stocking of their hybrids. We have developed an amplicon-based single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping panel that provides the ability to distinguish all four species and the commonly stocked M. chrysops x M. saxatilis hybrid using a set of 47 SNPs...

Seabirds are among the most threatened birds globally, with the loss or deterioration of coastal breeding habitats posing a severe threat. Natural and anthropogenic disturbances substantially influence coastal ecosystems through erosion and vegetation loss, altering habitat for the wildlife species that depend on them. In addition to these disturbances, oceanographic processes may play...

Objective Yellow Perch Perca flavescens was first encountered in Lake Cascade, Idaho, in 1957. Since its introduction, the abundance of Yellow Perch in Lake Cascade has been highly variable. Historically, declines in Yellow Perch abundance were attributed to predation by Northern Pikeminnow Ptychocheilus oregonensis. In the 1990s, Smallmouth Bass Micropterus dolomieu became established...