Stuart Welsh, PhD

The Blackwater River, a tributary of the upper Cheat River of the Monongahela River, hosts a modest fish fauna. This relatively low diversity of fish species is partly explained by its drainage history. The Blackwater was once part of the prehistoric, northeasterly flowing St. Lawrence River. During the Pleistocene Epoch, the fauna was significantly affected by glacial advance and by...

An understanding of historic and current water quality is needed to manage and improve aquatic communities within the Blackwater River watershed, WV. The Blackwater River, which historically offered an excellent Salvelinus fontinalis (Brook Trout) fishery, has been affected by logging, coal mining, use of off-road vehicles, and land development. Using information-theoretic methods, we...

Interpolation of stream habitat can be very useful for habitat assessment. Using a small number of habitat samples to predict the habitat of larger areas can reduce time and labor costs as long as it provides accurate estimates of habitat. The spatial correlation of stream habitat variables such as substrate and depth improves the accuracy of interpolated data. Several geographical...

In mined watersheds, water quality alters aquatic faunas, but few studies have focused on associations between stream habitat and crayfish distributions. We examined associations of water quality and physical habitat quality on presence/absence of six crayfish species in the upper Kanawha River drainage of southern West Virginia, USA, a region with a long history of surface and...

Fish passage facilities at dams have become an important focus of fishery management in riverine systems. Given the personnel and travel costs associated with physical monitoring programs, automated or semi-automated systems are an attractive alternative for monitoring fish passage facilities. We designed and tested a semi-automated system for eel ladder monitoring at Millville Dam on...

Reproductive biology and early life history data are critical for the conservation and management of rare fishes. During 2008–2012 a captive propagation study was conducted on the Diamond Darter, Crystallaria cincotta, a rare species with a single extant population in the lower Elk River, West Virginia. Water temperatures during spawning ranged from 11.1–23.3 C. Females and males spawned...