Publications

The macroinvertebrate microbiome controls various aspects of the host's physiology, from regulation of environmental contaminants to reproductive output. Aquatic insects provide critical nutritional subsidies linking aquatic and riparian food webs while simultaneously serving as a contaminant pathway for riparian insectivores in polluted ecosystems. Previous studies have characterized...

Aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems are linked through the reciprocal exchange of materials and organisms. Aquatic-to-terrestrial subsidies are relatively small in most terrestrial ecosystems, but they can provide high contents of limiting resources that increase consumer fitness and ecosystem production. However, they also may carry significant contaminant loads, particularly in...

The pallid sturgeon Scaphirhynchus albus is a long-lived, endangered fish in the Missouri River. Individuals become piscivorous as adults, so recruitment from stocking or reproduction could reduce populations of prey, including Macrhybopsis chubs. We constructed an individual- and age-based, multi-species, predator-prey-competitor model (IAMP) to represent the benthic community...

Natural resources management is often concerned with conserving rare-native or controlling rare-invasive fishes. Informing and assessing conservation and control efforts frequently requires information from captures. When little is understood about spatial and temporal fish distributions, captures can be infrequent and costly. If successful management depends on effective management...

BackgroundFreshwater megafishes are among some of the most commercially and ecologically important aquatic organisms yet are disproportionately threatened with range and population reduction. Anthropogenic alterations of rivers influencing migrations are among the most significant causes for these declines. However, migratory fishes do not always respond similarly to movement barriers...

Grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) are nonnative, herbivorous freshwater fish that represent an ecological threat in North American waters. However, data are limited on reproductive biology specific to wild populations in midwestern North America, despite recent concern for grass carp establishment within the Great Lakes. Basic information on reproductive traits could be useful to...

This study describes and validates a new method for extracting perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from whole-body fish tissue, demonstrates that freeze-dry preservation of tissue conserves bioaccumulative PFAS, and details a method demonstration on Lake Michigan fish. While fish filets are more commonly analyzed for their significance to human health, whole fish are...

The rapid advancement of environmental DNA (eDNA) science in the past two decades has inspired a concomitant growth in the development of eDNA sampling and analytical methods. However, these methods are often developed by individual laboratories or institutions, which can isolate protocols within programmes, agencies or regions and prevent the beneficial exchange of data and ideas...

Microplastics (MPs) are gaining attention for their widespread presence and toxicity in ecosystems. However, their role as a carbon source in urban wetland carbon sinks is still unclear. In this study, the microplastic-carbon (MP-C) was firstly quantified based on the abundance and occurrence characteristics, including MP morphology, size and type in the Sanyang Wetland, a typical urban...

Treated municipal wastewater effluent is an important pathway for Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CEC) to enter aquatic ecosystems. As the aging wastewater infrastructure in many industrialized countries requires upgrades or replacement, assessing new treatment technologies in the context of CEC effects may provide additional support for science-based resource management. Here, we used...

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework 2030 calls for the conservation of 30% of the world’s ecosystems, focusing on protecting areas vital to biodiversity, identifying and managing invasive species introduction pathways, and minimizing the impacts of climate change on biodiversity. While protected areas (PAs) have historically limited the introduction, establishment, and...

Significant variation in mercury (Hg) bioaccumulation is observed across the diversity of freshwater ecosystems in North America. While there is support for the major drivers of Hg bioaccumulation, the relative influence of different external factors can vary widely among waterbodies, which makes predicting Hg risk across large spatial scales particularly challenging. We modeled Hg...