Christopher Mebane
Biography
I am a "dirty water biologist" with interests and experience in water pollution ecology in streams, that is, relating human-influences on stream environments to biological effects and estimating risks of adverse effects. My recent interests and work have included effects of mining and trace elements on stream ecosystems, developing biotic ligand models (BLMs) to predict effects of metal mixtures in natural waters, and studies of nutrient enrichments and eutrophication in streams.
My professional interests and experience are focused on water pollution ecology in streams, that is, relating human-influences on stream environments to biological effects and estimating risks of adverse effects. Particular areas of interests include:
*Effects of nutrient enrichment on stream ecosystems. Particular aspects of interest include 1) factors limiting nuisance growth in rooted aquatic plants vs. algae, 2) integrating experimental and field bioassessment information between factors such nutrients, flows, algae and plants
*Ecological risk assessment, in particular predicting risks, adverse effects, and safe concentrations of trace metals in freshwater ecosystems. Particular aspects of interest include 1) water quality criteria development; 2) expanding the use of predictive toxicity models, with a recent emphasis on the biotic ligand model (BLM) with cadmium, cobalt, copper, lead, nickel, and zinc; 3) relating ecotoxicology testing to natural systems through population modeling or field studies
* Use of aquatic bioassessment or biomonitoring techniques to interpret changing environmental conditions.
Publications
The publications listed are from an automatic feed from USGS Publications Warehouse. It's somewhat random and most are paywalled. A more structured listing is available elsewhere (Google Scholar), and those full-text versions that may legally be freely shared are also available elsewhere (ResearchGate). The full-text of most publications is also available in PDF format by sending an e-mail.
Science and Products
Idaho's Large River Ambient Monitoring Network
From 1989 to 2009, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, monitored trends in water quality and biological integrity at more than 50 USGS streamgage stations on rivers throughout Idaho. In 2018, multiple State and Federal partners restarted a portion of the Large River Ambient Monitoring (LRAM) network.
Kootenai River Water-Quality Monitoring Related to Transboundary Coal Mining
The Kootenai River (Kootenay in Canada) rises from the Canadian Rockies and flows south in an arc through Montana and Idaho before swinging back into British Columbia and the Columbia River. The uplifted sedimentary rocks forming the southern Canadian Rockies have rich coal deposits that have been mined for many decades. The coal beds and associated rock layers are enriched with other minerals...
Modeling the Hydraulic and Water-Quality Habitat Suitability for Macrophytes in the Middle Snake River, South-Central Idaho
Rooted aquatic plants (macrophytes) are essential components of freshwater ecosystems. Macrophyte beds provide shelter for fish and other aquatic life. Their leaves and stems also provide algae with surfaces to colonize, which, in turn, drives the aquatic food webs and dissolved oxygen cycles. However, too much of a good thing can create problems. When growth conditions are favorable,...
Macroinvertebrate Communities Evaluated Before and After a Channel Restoration Project in Silver Creek, Blaine County
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Blaine County and The Nature Conservancy, evaluated the status of macroinvertebrate1 communities prior to and following a channel restoration project in Silver Creek, Blaine County, Idaho. The objective of the evaluation was to determine whether 2014 remediation efforts to restore natural channel conditions in an impounded area of Silver Creek...
Monitoring Mercury in Fish Tissue, Boise and Snake Rivers and Brownlee Reservoir
To meet National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting requirements, the City of Boise will be responsible for collecting fish tissue samples for mercury analysis upstream of and downstream of their wastewater treatment facilities discharging to the lower Boise and Snake Rivers.
Mercury is a naturally occurring element that ultimately makes its way into aquatic...
Wood River Valley Aquatic Biology and Habitat Assessment
Blaine County’s population nearly quadrupled from about 5,700 to 22,000 people between 1970 and 2010. Residents and resource managers of the Wood River Valley of south-central Idaho are concerned about the potential effects that population growth and the expected increased demand for water might have on the quantity and quality of the valley’s ground and surface waters. Increased water use has...
Identifying Bull Trout Migration in the Upper Boise River Basin
In 1999, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) listed the bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) as a threatened species. In 2010, the FWS designated critical habitat for the bull trout, including the upper Boise River basin. The Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) operates three reservoirs on the upper Boise River for irrigation and flood control. Reclamation and FWS have a need to understand...
Effects of Nutrient Enrichment on Stream Ecosystems (Upper Snake River Basin NAWQA)
Nutrient enrichment can affect the ecological health of a stream. For example, excessive aquatic plant growth caused by increased nutrients can reduce dissolved oxygen necessary for other aquatic life. Topics of particular interest in this study area include:
seasonal patterns among nutrients, flows, algae and plants in streams
rooted aquatic plant vs. algae growth
stream...
Potential Toxicity of Multiple Metals Associated with PGE Deposits
Water quality and aquatic life standards that are set by Federal and state regulatory agencies are used to evaluate the quality of our nation’s water and the health of aquatic ecosystems. These standards currently are based on hardness of the water and are determined for single metals, not for mixtures of metals that are typically found in natural systems. Metal mixtures can potentially be...
Panther Creek: Evaluating Recovery of a Mining-Damaged Stream Ecosystem
Historically, Idaho has been home to many productive underground and open-pit mining operations. These activities have also produced water quality problems in some areas. One such example is the Blackbird Mine in central Idaho. Following mining operations from the 1940s through the 1960s, Panther Creek and its tributaries were severely damaged by runoff from the Blackbird Mine. Water-quality...
Coeur d'Alene Lake Water Quality
The mining district in the South Fork Coeur d’Alene River valley was among the Nation’s largest producers of silver, lead, zinc, and other metals from the 1880s to the 1980s. These activities have produced large quantities of waste material that contain environmentally hazardous contaminants such as cadmium, lead, and zinc. Much of this material has been discharged directly to or washed into...
Time-dependent accumulation of Cd, Co, Cu, Ni, and Zn in mayfly and caddisfly larvae in experimental streams: Metal sensitivity, uptake pathways, and mixture toxicity
Conceptual and quantitative models were developed to assess time-dependent processes in four sequential experimental stream studies that determined abundances of natural communities of mayfly and caddisfly larvae dosed with single metals (Cd, Co, Cu, Ni, Zn) or multiple metals (Cd+Zn, Co+Cu, Cu+Ni, Cu+Zn, Ni+Zn, Cd+Cu+Zn, Co+Cu+Ni, Cu+Ni+Zn)....
Balistrieri, Laurie S.; Mebane, Christopher A.; Schmidt, Travis S.Copper concentrations in the upper Columbia River as a limiting factor in White Sturgeon recruitment and recovery
Currently there is little natural recruitment of white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus) in the Upper Columbia River located in British Columbia, Canada and Washington, USA. This review of life history, physiology, and behavior of white sturgeon, along with data from recent toxicological studies, suggest that trace metals, especially Cu, affect...
Puglis, Holly J.; Farag, Aida; Mebane, Christopher A.Adding invasive species bio-surveillance to the U.S. Geological Survey streamgage network
The costs of invasive species in the United States alone are estimated to exceed US$100 billion per year so a critical tactic in minimizing the costs of invasive species is the development of effective, early-detection systems. To this end, we evaluated the efficacy of adding environmental (e)DNA surveillance to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)...
Sepulveda, Adam J.; Schmidt, Christian; Amberg, Jon J.; Hutchins, Patrick R.; Stratton, Christian; Mebane, Christopher A.; Laramie, Matthew; Pilliod, DavidScientific integrity issues in environmental toxicology and chemistry: Improving research transparency, reproducibility, and credibility
High‐profile reports of detrimental scientific practices leading to retractions in the scientific literature contribute to lack of trust in scientific experts. Although the bulk of these have been in the literature of other disciplines, environmental toxicology and chemistry are not free from problems. While we believe that egregious misconduct...
Mebane, Christopher A.; Anne Fairbrother; Thomas Augspurger; Timothy J. Canfield; William Goodfellow; Patrick Guiney; Anne LeHuray; Lorraine Maltby; David Mayfield; Michael McLaughlin; Lisa Ortego; Tamar Schlekat; Richard P. Scroggins; John Sumpter; Tim VerslyckeCharacterizing toxicity of metal‐contaminated sediments from the Upper Columbia River, Washington, USA, to benthic invertebrates
Sediments from the Upper Columbia River, Washington, USA, are contaminated with metals from smelting operations. We conducted short‐term and long‐term tests with the midge Chironomus dilutus and the amphipod Hyalella azteca and short‐term tests with the freshwater mussel Lampsilis siliquoidea with 54 sediments from...
Besser, John M.; Steevens, Jeffery; Kunz, James L.; Brumbaugh, William G.; Ingersoll, Christopher G.; Cox, Stephen E.; Mebane, Christopher A.; Balistrieri, Laurie S.; Sinclair, Jesse A.; MacDonald, Donald D.Understanding the captivity effect on invertebrate communities transplanted into an experimental stream laboratory
Little is known about how design and testing methodologies affect the macroinvertebrate communities that are held captive in mesocosms. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a 32‐d test to determine how seeded invertebrate communities changed once removed from the natural stream and introduced to the laboratory. We evaluated larvae survival...
Schmidt, Travis S.; Rogers, Holly; Miller, Janet L.; Mebane, Christopher A.; Balistrieri, Laurie S.Mercury concentrations in water and mercury and selenium concentrations in fish from Brownlee Reservoir and selected sites in the Boise and Snake Rivers, Idaho and Oregon, 2013-17
Mercury (Hg) analyses were conducted on samples of water and sport fish collected from selected sampling sites in the Boise and Snake Rivers and Brownlee Reservoir, in Idaho and Oregon, to meet National Pollution Discharge and Elimination System permit requirements for the City of Boise, Idaho, from 2013 to 2017. City of Boise personnel collected...
MacCoy, Dorene E.; Mebane, Christopher A.Potential toxicity of dissolved metal mixtures (Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn) to early life stage white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus) in the Upper Columbia River, Washington, United States
The Upper Columbia River (UCR) received historical releases of smelter waste resulting in elevated metal concentrations in downstream sediments. Newly hatched white sturgeon hide within the rocky substrate at the sediment–water interface in the UCR for a few weeks before swim-up. Hiding behavior could expose them to metal contaminants, and metal...
Balistrieri, Laurie S.; Mebane, Christopher A.; Cox, Stephen E.; Puglis, Holly J.; Calfee, Robin D.; Wang, NingSpatial and temporal trends in selenium in the upper Blackfoot River watershed, southeastern Idaho, 2001–16
Phosphate mining in southeastern Idaho has been an important economic driver for the region and State for over 100 years, but weathering of mining waste rock has also released selenium into the Blackfoot River. This report analyzes and presents data from three separate but complementary studies monitoring selenium in streams in the region. The U.S...
Zinsser, Lauren M.; Mebane, Christopher A.; Mladenka, Greg C.; Van Every, Lynn R.; Williams, Marshall L.Understanding the influence of nutrients on stream ecosystems in agricultural landscapes
Sustaining the quality of the Nation’s water resources and the health of our diverse ecosystems depends on the availability of sound water-resources data and information to develop effective, science-based policies. Effective management of water resources also brings more certainty and efficiency to important economic sectors. Taken together,...
Munn, Mark D.; Frey, Jeffrey W.; Tesoriero, Anthony J.; Black, Robert W.; Duff, John H.; Lee, Kathy; Maret, Terry R.; Mebane, Christopher A.; Waite, Ian R.; Zelt, Ronald B.A long-term copper exposure in a freshwater ecosystem using lotic mesocosms: Invertebrate community responses
A lotic mesocosm study was carried out in 20-m-long channels, under continuous, environmentally realistic concentrations of copper (Cu) in low, medium, and high exposures (nominally 0, 5, 25, and 75 μg L−1; average effective concentrations <0.5, 4, 20, and 57 μg L−1 respectively) for 18 mo. Total abundance, taxa richness, and community...
Joachim, Sandrine; Roussel, Hélène; Bonzom, Jean-Marc; Thybaud, Eric; Mebane, Christopher A.; Brink, Paul Van den; Gauthier, LauryLarval aquatic insect responses to cadmium and zinc in experimental streams
To evaluate the risks of metal mixture effects to natural stream communities under ecologically relevant conditions, the authors conducted 30-d tests with benthic macroinvertebrates exposed to cadmium (Cd) and zinc (Zn) in experimental streams. The simultaneous exposures were with Cd and Zn singly and with Cd+Zn mixtures at environmentally...
Mebane, Christopher A.; Schmidt, Travis S.; Balistrieri, Laurie S.Pre-USGS Publications
When the Whole is Less than the Sum of Its Parts
Environmental Ratios of Cadmium and Zinc are less Toxic to Aquatic Insects than Expected