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Theodore Castro-Santos

Research Ecologist at the Eastern Ecological Science Center's S.O. Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center in Turners Falls, MA

Human activities have caused extensive fragmentation of riverine corridors.  Dams, culverts, and other barriers prevent migratory and riverine fishes from accessing key habitats.  This is particularly problematic for diadromous fishes like Atlantic salmon and American shad that must transition between fresh- and saltwater habitats in order to complete their life cycles.  Swimming performance and behavioral responses to hydraulic conditions (turbulence, velocity, etc.) are major interests, as is development of quantitative methods for identifying and characterizing barriers.  This work has broad relevance, not only to stewardship and management of aquatic resources, but also to understanding fundamental aspects of the ecology and evolution of fishes. Some current projects include:

  • Sprint-swimming performance of migratory and riverine species
  • Effects of turbulence on swimming performance, biomechanics, and behavior
  • Modeling fish passage through culverts
  • Bioenergetics models of anadromous fish migration

Professional Experience

  • US Geological Survey (1995-present) 

  • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (1992-1995)

Education and Certifications

  • PhD Organismic and Evolutionary Biology; University of Massachusetts Amherst (2002) 

  • MS Wildlife Biology Washington State University (1991)

  • BA Colgate University (1987)

Affiliations and Memberships*

  • American Fisheries Society

  • Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology

Science and Products

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USGS science for a changing world logo

A generic web application to visualize and understand movements of tagged animals

The goal of this project was to maximize the value of expensive animal tagging data. We developed an interactive web application to help scientists understand patterns in their own tagging datasets and to help scientists, funders and agencies communicate tagging data to decision-makers and to the general public. Interactive visualizations have emerged recently as a valuable tool for identifying pa
By
Community for Data Integration (CDI)
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A generic web application to visualize and understand movements of tagged animals

The goal of this project was to maximize the value of expensive animal tagging data. We developed an interactive web application to help scientists understand patterns in their own tagging datasets and to help scientists, funders and agencies communicate tagging data to decision-makers and to the general public. Interactive visualizations have emerged recently as a valuable tool for identifying pa
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Sea lamprey

Fish locomotion and biomechanics as limiting and optimizing factors in fish passage

Swimming ability determines how well fish are able to access habitat, and is a fundamental design consideration for passing fish at dams, road crossings, etc.
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Energy and Minerals Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Environmental Health Program, Species Management Research Program, Eastern Ecological Science Center
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Fish locomotion and biomechanics as limiting and optimizing factors in fish passage

Swimming ability determines how well fish are able to access habitat, and is a fundamental design consideration for passing fish at dams, road crossings, etc.
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aquatic biomechanics

Fish Biomechanics

Biomechanics is the study of mechanical laws relating to the movement of living organisms.
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Species Management Research Program, Eastern Ecological Science Center
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Fish Biomechanics

Biomechanics is the study of mechanical laws relating to the movement of living organisms.
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Data Release for Multimodal Invasive Carp Deterrent Study at Barkley Lock and Dam: Status Update through 2022

The BioAcoustic Fish Fence (BAFF; Fish Guidance Systems Ltd.) is a multi-modal deterrent that utilizes a combination of lights, sound, and bubbles to guide fish away from a location. An experimental deployment of a BAFF is currently ongoing at Barkley Lock and Dam on the Cumberland River near Grand Rivers, KY. This dataset includes information derived from two telemetry arrays (i.e., VEMCO and HTI
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Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center

Data Release for Lock 19 Underwater Acoustic Deterrent System (UADS) Study: Interim Project Update

The Underwater Acoustic Deterrent System is an experimental deterrent that utilizes underwater sounds to deter invasive carps. An experimental deployment and evaluation of a UADS is currently being conducted at Lock 19 on the Mississippi River, near Keokuk, Iowa. This dataset includes information derived from two telemetry arrays (i.e., 307 kHz HTI and 69 kHz VEMCO) deployed at and around Lock 19
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Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center

Herring passage at Herring River Tidegates

Data used to produce results for publication in Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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Eastern Ecological Science Center
One USGS scientist holds an adult brown trout in a water bath as a second USGS scientist inserts a radio tag.
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Implanting a radio tag in brown trout
Filter Total Items: 74

Multimodal invasive carp deterrent study at Barkley Lock and Dam—Status update through 2022

Invasive carp (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis [Bighead Carp], Mylopharyngodon piceus [Black Carp], Ctenopharyngodon idella [Grass Carp], and H. molitrix [Silver Carp]) continue to spread in the United States and deterrents at river navigation locks are one emerging control strategy for slowing the spread. High-head navigation dams on large rivers serve as impediments to the upstream spread of these po
Authors
Andrea K. Fritts, Daniel Gibson-Reinemer, Jessica C. Stanton, Kyle Mosel, Marybeth K. Brey, Jonathan M. Vallazza, Douglas Appel, Jacob Faulkner, Joshua Tompkins, Theodore Castro-Santos, Matthew Sholtis, Andy Turnpenny, Peter Sorensen, Rob Simmonds
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Western Fisheries Research Center, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center

Lock 19 underwater acoustic deterrent system study—Interim project update, through 2022

Invasive carp (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis [Richardson, 1845; Bighead Carp], H. molitrix [Valenciennes in Cuvier and Valenciennes, 1844; Silver Carp], Ctenopharyngodon idella [Valenciennes in Cuvier and Valenciennes, 1844; Grass Carp], and Mylopharyngodon piceus [Richardson, 1846; Black Carp]) expansion threatens the Laurentian Great Lakes and other major waterways. Numerous tools and techniques ar
Authors
Marybeth K. Brey, Christa M. Woodley, Jessica C. Stanton, Andrea K. Fritts, Matthew Sholtis, Theodore Castro-Santos, Jonathan M. Vallazza, Janice L. Albers
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Columbia Environmental Research Center, Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, Western Fisheries Research Center

Using recovered radio transmitters to estimate positioning error and a generalized Monte Carlo simulation to incorporate error into animal telemetry analysis

BackgroundMobile radio tracking is an important tool in fisheries research and management. Yet, the accuracy of location estimates can be highly variable across studies and within a given dataset. While some methods are available to deal with error, they generally assume a static value for error across all detections. We provide a novel method for making detection-specific error estimates using de
Authors
Kurt C. Heim, W.C. Ardren, Theodore Castro-Santos
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Eastern Ecological Science Center

Survival, healing, and swim performance of juvenile migratory sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) implanted with a new acoustic microtransmitter designed for small eel-like fishes

BackgroundLittle is known about the transformer stage of the parasitic lampreys, a brief but critical period that encompasses juvenile out-migration from rivers to lakes or oceans to begin parasitic feeding. Information about this life stage could have significant conservation implications for both imperiled and invasive lampreys. We investigated tag retention, survival, wound healing, and swim pe
Authors
Taylor F. Haas, Theodore R. Castro-Santos, Scott M. Miehls, Zhiqun D. Deng, Tyler Michael Bruning, C. Michael Wagner
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Great Lakes Science Center

Environmental factors influencing detection efficiency of an acoustic telemetry array and consequences for data interpretation

BackgroundAcoustic telemetry is a commonly used technology to monitor animal occupancy and infer movement in aquatic environments. The information that acoustic telemetry provides is vital for spatial planning and management decisions concerning aquatic and coastal environments by characterizing behaviors and habitats such as spawning aggregations, migrations, corridors, and nurseries, among other
Authors
Michael Long, Adrian Jordaan, Theodore R. Castro-Santos
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Eastern Ecological Science Center

Tracking anadromous fish over successive freshwater migrations reveals the influence of tagging effect, previous success and abiotic factors on upstream passage over barriers

Predicting and mitigating the impact of anthropogenic barriers on migratory fish requires an understanding of the individual and environmental factors that influence barrier passage. Here, the upstream spawning migrations of iteroparous twaite shad Alosa fallax were investigated over three successive spawning migrations in a highly fragmented river basin using passive acoustic telemetry (n=184). M
Authors
Peter Davies, J. Robert Britton, Theodore R. Castro-Santos, Charles Crundwell, Jamie R. Dodd, Andrew D. Nunn, Randolph Velterop, Jonathan D. Bolland
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Cooperative Research Units, Eastern Ecological Science Center

Applied aspects of locomotion and biomechanics

Locomotion is the act and process of moving from place to place, which is fundamental to the life history of all mobile organisms. While the field of biomechanics encompasses the study of the physical constraints of what animals are capable of, ecological contexts require an integrated view that includes ecology and behavior. This chapter provides an overview of some of the areas where locomotion
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Theodore R. Castro-Santos, Elsa Goerig, Pingguo He, George Lauder
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Eastern Ecological Science Center

Fish-inspired segment models for undulatory swimming

Many aquatic animals swim by undulatory body movements and understanding the diversity of these movements could unlock the potential for designing better underwater robots. Here, we analyzed the steady swimming kinematics of a diverse group of fish species to investigate whether their undulatory movements can be represented using a series of interconnected multi-segment models, and if so, to ident
Authors
O. Akanyeti, V. di Santo, Elsa Goerig, Dylan K. Wainwright, J.C. Liao, Theodore R. Castro-Santos, George Lauder
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Eastern Ecological Science Center

BIOTAS: BIOTelemetry Analysis Software, for the semi-automated removal of false positives from radio telemetry data

IntroductionRadio telemetry, one of the most widely used techniques for tracking wildlife and fisheries populations, has a false-positive problem. Bias from false-positive detections can affect many important derived metrics, such as home range estimation, site occupation, survival, and migration timing. False-positive removal processes have relied upon simple filters and personal opinion. To over
Authors
Kevin Nebiolo, Theodore R. Castro-Santos
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Eastern Ecological Science Center

Convergence of undulatory swimming kinematics across a diversity of fishes

Fishes exhibit an astounding diversity of locomotor behaviors from classic swimming with their body and fins to jumping, flying, walking, and burrowing. Fishes that use their body and caudal fin (BCF) during undulatory swimming have been traditionally divided into modes based on the length of the propulsive body wave and the ratio of head:tail oscillation amplitude: anguilliform, subcarangiform, c
Authors
V. di Santo, E. Goerig, D Wainwright, O. Akanyeti, J.C. Liao, Theodore R. Castro-Santos, G.V. Lauder
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Eastern Ecological Science Center

Culverts delay upstream and downstream migrations of river herring (Alosa spp.)

Alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) and blueback herring (Alosa aestivalis) are iteroparous anadromous fish found throughout the East Coast of North America. The phenology of anadromous fish migrations is important for fitness, and the duration of spawning migrations has been compressed in recent years in response to climate change. Anthropogenic barriers to movement, such as dams and culverts at road-
Authors
Derrick Alcott, Elsa Goerig, Theodore R. Castro-Santos
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Eastern Ecological Science Center

Surface water with more natural temperatures promotes physiological and endocrine changes in landlocked Atlantic salmon smolts

Hatchery salmonid smolts are often reared using groundwater with elevated temperatures to maximize growth. Previous work has shown that rearing hatchery smolts in surface water with a more natural thermal regime resulted in increased return rates of adult landlocked Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). We evaluated whether landlocked Atlantic salmon reared in surface water with a natural temperature reg
Authors
Amy M. Regish, William R. Ardren, Nicholas R Staats, Henry Bouchard, Jonah L. Withers, Theodore R. Castro-Santos, Stephen D. McCormick
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Eastern Ecological Science Center

Science and Products

*Disclaimer: Listing outside positions with professional scientific organizations on this Staff Profile are for informational purposes only and do not constitute an endorsement of those professional scientific organizations or their activities by the USGS, Department of the Interior, or U.S. Government