Publications

Intensive management of the Missouri River for navigation, flood control, and power generation has resulted in substantial physical changes to the river corridor. Historically, the Missouri River was characterized by a shifting, multithread channel and abundant unvegetated sandbars. The shifting channel provided a wide variety of hydraulic environments and large areas of connected and unconnected

Understanding of the pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) has increased significantly since the species was listed as endangered over two decades ago. Since 2005, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Columbia Environmental Research Center (CERC) have been engaged in an interdisciplinary research program in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Missouri River Recovery Progr

This report summarizes comprehensive findings from a 4-year-long field investigation to document baseline environmental conditions in 29 agricultural drains and ponds operated by the Imperial Irrigation District along the southern border of the Salton Sea. Routine water-quality collections and fish community assessments were conducted on as many as 16 sampling dates at roughly quarterly intervals

A bathymetric and velocimetry survey was conducted on the Mississippi River in the vicinity of a proposed new bridge for Interstate 70 at St. Louis, Missouri. A multibeam echo sounder mapping system and an acoustic Doppler current profiler were used to obtain channel-bed elevations and vertically averaged and near-bed velocities for a 3,545-foot (1,080-meter) long reach of the Mississippi River ap

As with all large rivers in the United States, the Missouri River has been altered, with approximately one-third of the mainstem length impounded and one-third channelized. These physical alterations to the environment have affected the fish populations, but studies examining the effects of alterations have been localized and for short periods of time, thereby preventing generalization. In respons

For many years, amphibians were understudied in the ecotoxicological literature. In 1989, the Canadian Wildlife Service published a comprehensive review of studies examining the effects of contaminants on amphibians (Power et al. 1989). Just 10 years later, the same organization published an updated review that included twice the number of studies (Pauli et al. 2000), indicating rapid growth in th

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a summary of issues and findings related to the potential effects of coalbed natural gas (CBNG) development on fish and other aquatic resources. We reviewed CBNG issues from across the United States and used the Powder River Basin of Wyoming as a case study to exemplify some pertinent issues. The quality of water produced during CBNG extraction is quite va

No abstract available. 

When the first edition of Ecotoxicology of Amphibians and Reptiles was published in 2000, I reviewed the state of the literature from 1972 through 1998 (Sparling et al. 2000). That review covered 11 271 contaminant citations listed in Wildlife Review and Sports Fisheries Abstracts published by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Among its findings, only 2.7% of the cited papers were on amphibians an

No abstract available. 

Thiaminase activity of alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) is variable across Lake Michigan, yet factors that contribute to the variability in alewife thiaminase activity are unknown. The fatty acid content of Lake Michigan alewife has not been previously reported. Analysis of 53 Lake Michigan alewives found a positive correlation between thiaminase activity and the following fatty acid: C22:ln9, sum o

Passive samplers such as the Polar Organic Chemical Integrative Sampler (POCIS) are useful tools for monitoring trace levels of polar organic chemicals in aquatic environments. The use of performance reference compounds (PRC) spiked into the POCIS adsorbent for in situ calibration may improve the semiquantitative nature of water concentration estimates based on this type of sampler. In this work,