Craig Paukert, PhD

Large rivers throughout the world have been modified by using dike structures to divert water flows to deepwater habitats to maintain navigation channels. These modifications have been implicated in the decline in habitat diversity and native fishes. However, dike structures have been modified in the Missouri River USA to increase habitat diversity to aid in the recovery of native fishes...

Occupancy modeling was used to determine (1) if detection probabilities (p) for 7 regionally imperiled Missouri River fishes (Scaphirhynchus albus, Scaphirhynchus platorynchus, Cycleptus elongatus, Sander canadensis, Macrhybopsis aestivalis, Macrhybopsis gelida, and Macrhybopsis meeki) differed among gear types (i.e. stationary gill nets, drifted trammel nets, and otter trawls), and (2)...

Globally, riverine fish face many anthropogenic threats including riparian and flood plain habitat degradation, altered hydrology, migration barriers, fisheries exploitation, environmental (climate) change, and introduction of invasive species. Collectively, these threats have made riverine fishes some of the most threatened taxa on the planet. Although much effort has been devoted to...

To date, the predominant use of systematic conservation planning has been to evaluate and conserve areas of high terrestrial biodiversity. Although studies in freshwater ecosystems have received recent attention, research has rarely considered the potential trade-offs between protecting different dimensions of biodiversity and the ecological processes that maintain diversity. We provide...

Anthropogenic disturbances impact freshwater biota but are rarely incorporated into conservation planning due to the difficulties in quantifying threats. There is currently no widely accepted method to quantify disturbances, and determining how to measure threats to upstream catchments using disturbance metrics can be time consuming and subjective. We compared four watershed-scale...

Sign surveys are commonly used to study and monitor wildlife species but may be flawed when surveys are conducted only once and cover short distances, which can lead to a lack of accountability for false absences. Multiple observers surveyed for river otter (Lontra canadensis) scat and tracks along stream and reservoir shorelines at 110 randomly selected sites in eastern Kansas from...

The North American river otter (Lontra canadensis) is recovering from near extirpation throughout much of its range. Although reintroductions, trapping regulations and habitat improvements have led to the reestablishment of river otters in the Midwest, little is known about how their distribution is influenced by local- and landscape-scale habitat. We conducted river otter sign surveys...

To date, the predominant use of systematic conservation planning has been to evaluate and conserve areas of high terrestrial biodiversity. Although studies in freshwater ecosystems have received recent attention, research has rarely considered the potential trade-offs between protecting different dimensions of biodiversity and the ecological processes that maintain diversity. We provide...

We investigated fish assemblage structure in engineered (rip‐rap) and natural habitats (log jams and mud banks) in the Kansas River USA to determine if natural structures had higher abundance and diversity of fishes at a local spatial scale. A total of 439 randomly selected sites were boat electrofished from May to August 2005 and 2006. Mean species diversity and richness were...

Improperly designed stream crossing structures may alter the form and function of stream ecosystems and habitat and prohibit the movement of aquatic organisms. Stream sections adjoining five concrete box culverts, five low-water crossings (concrete slabs vented by one or multiple culverts), and two large, single corrugated culvert vehicle crossings in eastern Kansas streams were compared...

No abstract available.

A mark-recapture field study was conducted to determine fish passage at 5 concrete box culverts and 5 low-water crossings (concrete slabs vented by culverts) as well as 10 control sites (below a natural riffle) in Flint Hills streams of northeastern Kansas. Additionally, we tested the upstream passage of four fish species native to Great Plains streams (Topeka shiner Notropis topeka...