Birds perform valuable ecological functions and are useful environmental indicators. Avian distributions and diversity are predicted to change over the next 50 years. Little information exists on the role of local and regional conditions in fluctuations of avian communities over time. Historic datasets present a legacy of information that helps...
The Cackling goose (Branta hutchinsii minima) population has increased from a low of 20,000 in 1984 to the current population of 220,000-300,000 (Stehn 2012, Sanders 2013). As the Cackling goose population began to recover in the late 1990s, the majority of the population relocated from wintering in California to the...
The mechanisms of mortality during critical life stages of fish are not well-understood and, for many species, it is not clear if the mechanisms are similar for naturally and artificially propagated individuals. For Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), natural fish potentially face negative interactions, such as competition, and survival disadvantages, such...
Nest sites of reticulate sculpin (Cottus perplexus) were located in two stream reaches, one from a basalt basin and one from a sandstone basin. Stream reaches were similar in gradient, basin area, elevation, climate, and riparian vegetation but differed in biologic community structure and substrate characteristics. An electivity index was...
The population of Catostomus rimiculus from Jenny Creek basin is identified as a dwarfed derivative of the normally much larger C. rimiculus from the Klamath and Rogue River systems. C. rimiculus in Jenny Creek basin are separated from those in the Klamath by a series of 3-10m waterfalls resulting from...
Understanding food webs is fundamental in conserving endangered species and maintaining healthy ecosystem function, particularly in desert spring systems. We identified dominant energy sources in the Muddy River Warm Springs area, Clark County, NV using carbon and nitrogen natural abundance stable isotope analyses. We examined isotopic signatures of specific macroinvertebrate...
A group of trout that reside in streams of the desiccating lake
basins of southeastern Oregon differ markedly from other known
Salmo. Known commonly as the red-band trout, this fish was subjected
to chromosome analysis for comparison with other species of
western North American Salmo. The karyotype of the red-banded...
Classification of Streams and stream habitats is useful for research involving establishment of monitoring stations, determining local impacts of land use practices, generalization from site-specific data, and assessment of basin-wide, cumulative impacts of human activities on streams and their biota. This thesis presents a framework for a hierarchical classification system,...
Depleted species of rockfish (Sebastes spp.) from the Northeast Pacific experience high discard mortality due to "barotrauma," induced from the rapid change in pressure during capture. Research suggests rockfish have the potential to survive barotrauma if immediately recompressed, but the potential for long-term recovery is unknown. In this project, we...
The genotype frequencies of one-year-old oyster spat
(Crassostrea gigas) from parents of known genotype, are compared
to the frequencies expected with Mendelian inheritance. The genotypes
are characterized at three enzyme loci, Aspartate amino-transferase
(AAT), Phosphohexose isomerase (PHI) and Leucine
aminopeptidase (LAP), and a general protein locus. In this study
expression...
To understand the influence of selective harvesting on
the adaptive capacity of fish populations in changing
environments, a computer simulation model was developed. In
the model, hypothetical populations were composed of five
different life histories, which were genetically determined.
Each life history type had its own rate of survival and...
The research involved development of two ecological
simulation models to explain the complex dimensionality of
chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) life history
structure (represented by the age composition of the
spawning stock) and management difficulties entailed in the
complexity.
Since different sizes of chinook salmon are thought to
adapt differently to...
This thesis focuses upon whether stressful aspects of an organism's environment are reflected by that organism's shape. It presents an application of the powerful thin-plate spline and relative warp methods from morphometric analysis to demonstrate the overall utility of morphometrics in detecting environmental stress in an estuarine flatfish, the English...
Initially, components of an aquatic food web were examined to study impacts of recreational use on the aquatic ecology of Quartzville Creek, Oregon in 1995 and 1996. Measurements of the food web components consisted of observations of harlequin ducks (Histrionicus histrionicus), visual counts of the larval caddisfly Dicosmoecus gilvipes, benthic...
An aspect of the genetic structure of coastal Oregon steelhead was
explored and found to gradually change in a north to south pattern for the
allelic frequencies of several enzymes. Isocitrate dehydrogenase and
superoxide dehydrogenase were the clearest examples of this pattern of
variation. This pattern was most evident in...
The rainbow trout population in Elder Creek, Oregon was
studied between June 1965 and November 1966. The physical characteristics
of the stream during the summer season were described.
Rainbow trout were captured in each of three sections on the stream
by electrofishing and were tagged and measured. Population size,
mortality,...
Between 1970 and 1974, data were collected on the distribution and biology of the spotted owl (Strix occidentalis) in Oregon. One-hundred and sixteen pairs and seven single birds were located. Spotted owls occurred throughout the mountains of western Oregon and on the east slope of the Cascade Range at least...
Field collections in the Southern Gulf of Oman and the Northwestern Arabian Sea, and
examination of museum collections from this study area, yielded 7 genera and 33 species
of apogonid fishes. Twenty one species of Apogon, one Archamia, four Cheilodipterus,
three Fowleria, one Rhabdamia, two Siphamia, and one Holapogon are...
Descriptions and distributions are given of 28 species of
Liparidae occurring or possibly occurring below 200 m between San
Francisco and northern Vancouver Island, with keys for their identifications.
Nine genera are included: Careproctus, Elassodiscus,
Lipariscus, Nectoliparis, Rhinoliparis, Acantholiparis, Paraliparis,
and two new genera are described, Odontoliparis and Osteodiscus.
Eight...
The taxonomic placement of Gadopsidae is discussed and an evaluation of its osteological relationships with related families is given. Similarities to the more primitive genera of the trachinoids, notothenioids, and uranoscopoids are noted and the inclusion of Gadopsidae in the Trachinoidae is recommended. A description of the geological history of...
Conceptually, the dynamics of wood in streams can be viewed in terms of input and in-channel processes. Input processes are associated with both the riparian (tree fall, bank cutting, windthrow) and upslope forests (mass failures). In-channel processes include log breakage, movement, and decomposition. A mechanistic view of these processes is...
A generalized mathematical model of ecosystems is
developed. The model begins with the general class of
systems known as state-determined systems, in which the
time-derivative of each state variable is a function of some
subset of the set of all system state variables and
.environmental parameters. A formal basis is...
A theoretical framework for economic fishery management was
developed. Extensive isocline analysis of a general fishery model
yielded a detailed look at the possible equilibrium behavior of a
system that was allowed to vary in terms of the levels of its
environmental parameters, its composition, and the response functions
governing...
Twentieth century commercial whaling drastically reduced the abundance of great whale populations in the Southern Ocean. Exploitation began on the south Atlantic island of South Georgia, where catch records account for over 175,000 whales killed. Modern whaling within the Southern Ocean depleted populations rapidly, and by 1966, hunting blue whales...
Fisheries management that is based on quantitative assessment has commonly relied on estimating the unfished biomass of a fished stock to compare current and historical population size. Developing predictive models for this requires many years of catch and abundance data. Smaller, new, or mainly recreational fisheries may not have the...
Upper Klamath Lake in southern Oregon has two species of lacustrine suckers,
Lost River sucker Deltistes luxatus and shortnose sucker Chasmistes brevirostris that
were historically abundant. Results of surveys performed in the mid-1980's indicated that populations of both species were declining and ageing with apparent recruitment failure in most years...
The corvina reina (Cynoscion albus) is an important part of the artisanal fishery
in the Gulf of Nicoya, Costa Rica. Stock assessment on this sciaenid species has been
restricted to the use of length-based methods because of the lack of age data. Direct age
determination methodologies for tropical species often...
Waldo Lake, located in the Oregon Cascades, is
considered to be one of the most dilute lakes in the
world. Even with very low nutrient concentrations and
sparse populations of zooplankton, introduced fish in the
lake are large in size and in good condition when compared
to fish from other...
A study was conducted at Yaquina Bay, Oregon, to determine
the age-fecundity relationships in the striped seaperch Embiotoca
lateralis. A questionnaire was sent to California, Oregon, and
Washington to ascertain what regulations were in effect, and the value
of the family Embiotocidae with regard to the sport and commercial
harvest....
Northern Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis caurina) are a long-lived forest owl and range-wide declines in their numbers have resulted in the species being listed as threatened under the endangered species act. While many studies have been focused on population trends and reproductive performance of Spotted Owls from different age-classes, none...
Despite being a highly charismatic and frequently exhibited organism,
Giant Pacific Octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini) population dynamics
are poorly understood. Basic monitoring data for this species is
limited to bycatch and stomach contents of other fisheries species. An
essential step to a better estimation of population size and
productivity is to...
The potential impact of chemical contaminants and conservation practices on amphibians in agricultural landscapes is a key research topic globally. Amphibians represent a common group in many freshwater systems and are currently experiencing worldwide population declines. Global amphibian declines may be attributed to a number of causes, including habitat loss,...
The critically endangered Maui's dolphin (Cephalorhynchus hectori maui) and the endangered Hector's dolphin (C. h. hectori) are endemic to the coastal waters of New Zealand, where their primary threat is fisheries-related mortality. The Maui's dolphin is among the most critically endangered cetaceans in the world, with its remnant population primarily...
The distribution of American martens (Martes americana) within Sagehen Creek Experimental Forest (SCEF), Tahoe National Forest, California has been periodically documented from 1980–1993. This area has been the location of nine marten surveys, each involving a systematic detection/nondetection survey on the same grid. These data are an unprecedented time series...
Forecasts of the impacts of climate change have traditionally focused on individual species and their phenotypes, phenology, or distribution. However, shifts in species distributions and the resulting reorganization of community composition represent an important violation to the assumption of species acting in isolation. Whereas species may respond individualistically to climate...
The natural environment provides important services and benefits to peoples’ health and lives. Conversely, environmental disservices can have negative impacts on humans such as through pollution, chemical toxins, and climate change. The combination of environmental services and disservices encompass how human health and wellbeing, and the environment are connected. As...
Effects of habitat and season on guild structure of avian
communities were examined for islands in the estuary zone of the
Columbia River, Oregon. Bird species were classified into guilds
according to their major food item, typical foraging substrate, and
foraging behavior. Variation in community structure indices (number of
guilds,...
The dissertation introduces community-based adaptive watershed management (CAWM) as a holistic conservation framework. The CAWM
framework integrates social and ecological suitability to achieve conservation outcomes. The core theoretical concepts consist of adaptive management, adoption-diffusion,
symbolic interactionism, community-based conservation, spatial analysis and watershed management. The CAWM framework is applied to the...
Long-term oceanographic and meteorological data were used to develop models that describe the observed variation in the recruitment of Pacific mackerel (Scomber japonicus) in the California
Current region. The models that were found to best describe recruitment included both density-dependent factors and environmental factors. Models incorporating only density-dependent factors
accounted...
Biliary excretion has been of considerable interest in mammals
but has not been extensively studied in fish. To understand the
significance of biliary excretion in rainbow trout (Salmo gairdneri),
two studies were conducted.
The objective of the initial study was to evaluate the ability of
rainbow trout to excrete a...
During the summers of 1970 and 1971 a total of 95 sea otter (Enhydra lutris) were shipped to Oregon from Amchitka Island, Alaska. The 1970 shipment consisted of 31 otter which were to be released on the southern Oregon Coast near the town of Port Orford. Two of these animals...
Collaborative decision-making is often promoted as a means to achieve socially acceptable and enduring solutions to natural resource management issues, and one that holds promise for resolving “wicked” problems. However, success rates for implementation of collaborative recommendations are unknown. This paper explores challenges to collaborative salmon fishery management in Prince...
Several types of instream structures were evaluated for their
potential to provide rearing habitat and to increase reach carrying
capacity for steelhead trout (Salmo gairdneri). Evaluation was
conducted in each season over the course of 1 year.
Blast pools created in bedrock glides increased the carrying
capacity of stream reaches...
Numerous populations of salmon and trout undergo extensive migrations, migrating from freshwater to the sea and throughout ocean basins. Years later they return to their natal streams with remarkable accuracy and precision. The outward migration is accomplished without the benefit of following experienced migrants or prior individual experience. Evidence suggests...
Two indigenous species of burrowing shrimp inhabit and often dominate the intertidal zone of estuaries along the US West Coast, the ghost shrimp, Neotrypaea californiensis, and the blue mud shrimp, Upogebia pugettensis. Both species are considered ecosystem engineers and play a role in maintaining estuarine health and ecosystem function. They...
Species conservation depends on robust population assessment. Data on population abundance, distribution, and connectivity are critical for effective management, especially as baseline information for newly documented populations. I describe a pygmy blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda) population in New Zealand waters with year-round presence that overlaps with industrial activities. This...
The genetic basis of adaptation is complex as many fitness-related traits are quantitative and likely influenced by multiple genes with variable effects across different selective environments. One important adaptation for anadromous Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) is the time at which individuals return to natal breeding sites within a reproductive season....
Results of a study of spatial and temporal utilization of a tidal river estuary by hatchery and wild juvenile salmonids
(Oncorhynchus spp. and Salmo spp,), of overlap in food habits of hatchery and wild juvenile salmonids, and of size and relative
abundance of associated fish species are reported in this...
In this study an analysis of the commercial fishery of the Loreto Region, with emphasis on the fishery fleet of Iquitos, Amazon Basin, Peru, is presented. There is evidence of a progressive replacement of large species by smaller, more productive and lower value species in the landing of the commercial...
Methods and utility of age determination of yellowtail rockfish
(Sebastes flavidus), canary rockfish (Sebastes pinniger), and black
rockfish (Sebastes melanops) collected off Oregon during 1972 to
1975 are discussed. Structures compared on the basis of the reproducibility
of counts of annuli (consistency of readings) were the anal fin
pterygiophore, opercle,...
The goal of this project was to estimate the total annual cost of salmon recovery efforts throughout the Columbia River Basin from all stakeholders, including direct and indirect costs. How much is spent on salmon recovery efforts each year in the Columbia River Basin? Depending on who you ask, you...
Stocks of salmon are declining in the Pacific Northwest. Based on region-wide studies that list and categorize the status of salmon stocks (Nehlsen et al., 1991; Huntington et al., 1994; and Nawa, 1995), I analyze the watersheds where stocks of salmon spawn for several anthropogenic variables, most of which are...
Advances in mobile autonomous vehicles for oceanographic sensing provide new opportunities for passive acoustic monitoring of marine mammals. Acoustically equipped mobile autonomous platforms, including gliders, deep-water profiling floats, and drifting surface buoys can survey for a variety of marine mammal species over intermediate spatiotemporal scales. Additionally, such mobile platforms may...
Olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) present an interesting case study of the conservation of wildlife species that aggregate in high densities and have served as resources for human consumption. Ridleys exhibit synchronized mass-nesting behavior,
during events called "arribadas," where thousands of females lay eggs together in a small area...
Neuromuscular physiology has been extensively investigated
in several groups of vertebrates excluding fish. To
understand the nature of neuromuscular transmission in this
group, the response of the pectoral fin abductor muscle of
black bass (Micropterus salmoides) to nerve stimulation
under the influence of an anticho1inesterase agent was
studied. Diisopropylfluorophosphate (DFP),...
Rotary screw traps were used to estimate Pacific lamprey smolt yield,
outmigration timing, age structure and sex ratio for Tenmile Creek basin, Lane County,
Oregon. Traps were fished March to June and August to December 1994 and March to
June and October to December 1995. Lamprey smolts caught in the...
The decline of many Pacific salmon stocks has stimulated interest in the early life history and habitat requirements of juvenile salmon. Although estuarine habitat associations of juvenile salmon have been investigated in many coastal areas of the eastern Pacific Ocean, until recently, little was known about juvenile salmonid ecology within...
The North Pacific humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) population has been increasing at an average annual rate of ~6% since the early 1990s. In northern Southeast Alaska alone, there are now more whales than estimated for the entire North Pacific several decades ago. An understanding of how this growing population is...
The groundfish trawl fishery operating off the coasts of Oregon
and Washington 1985-1987 caught six major assemblages of species
which could be treated as units in developing mixed-species
management plans. Eighty-one percent of the tows observed on
commercial vessels were consistently placed in one of the assemblage
designations using three...
In the western United States, bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) have suffered major die-offs in every state since the mid-1800s, and disease from domestic sheep (Ovis aries) has been a primary factor in these events. Beginning in the early 1900s, poly-factorial, poly-microbial pneumonia was identified as a major disease affecting bighorn...
The Wetland Reserve Program (WRP) is one conservation tool that mitigates national wetland loss and a primary goal for the program includes optimizing wildlife habitat by restoring wetland functions and values. Few studies have evaluated the WRP, which limits our understanding of its impact on wildlife populations. I assessed the...
The life history traits of polygamous, non-territorial shorebirds like the Red Phalarope (Phalaropus fulicarius) can make it challenging to assess their population status. There are two general approaches to statistical inference used to understand shorebird (Order: Charadriiformes) population change: design-based inference, which implements an a-priori sampling scheme with known selection...
Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) populations in south-central Oregon are near their lowest levels since census efforts began in 1961. I investigated fawn survival, cause-specific mortality, and factors contributing to mortality from 2010 – 2012 to identify potential causes for the decline. I also explored pre-parturition and parturition site characteristics.
I...
Detection and treatment of bacterial kidney disease (BKD)
was investigated. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the
quantitative, fluorescent antibody technique (QFAT) that is used
to detect, identify, and quantify both typical and 'bar form'
Renibacterium salmoninarum cells. Smears of kidney tissue from
naturally and artificially infected salmonids, both with and...
Fire suppression in high-elevation sagebrush steppe over the last century has
profoundly influenced the structure and complexity of vegetation communities.
Although fire is the primary management tool used to restore these areas, the impact
of this management practice on associated avian communities is poorly understood.
We examined patterns of habitat...
Vibrio coralliilyticus (Vcor) is a bacterial pathogen that is well adapted to shellfish hatcheries and is very pathogenic to the larvae of the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas. Vcor has been associated with several large scale larval mortality events in the Pacific Northwest that interrupt the supply of seed oysters available...
The detection of white-nose syndrome (WNS) in King County, WA in 2016 prompted the National Park Service to mobilize region-wide bat monitoring and disease surveillance. One of the goals of the Pacific West Region WNS response plan was to implement acoustic monitoring to determine the distribution of bat species and...
Commercial whaling during the 20th century drastically reduced many populations of great whales in the Southern Hemisphere. The Antarctic blue whale, for example, is estimated to have been reduced to less than 0.1% of its original abundance based on catch records and population dynamic models. Despite this population bottleneck, several...
The development of assays for stress in marine fishes is vital for studying the impacts of bycatch in fisheries and for determining the health of fish being cultured or used in research. This research developed behavioral and physiological assays for stress in juvenile sablefish, Anoplopoma fimbria, a species that comprises...
I investigated the relationship between harlequin duck (Histrionicus histrionicus) behavior and lack of recovery from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska. First, I evaluated the hypothesis that harlequin ducks in winter have little flexibility to increase foraging time in response to disturbance because they are constrained...
I measured responses of free-ranging Rocky Mountain elk (Cervus elaphus) to recreational disturbance at Starkey Experimental Forest and Range, Oregon from April to October, 2003 and 2004. Resting, feeding, and travel activities of 13 cow elk were recorded at 5-minute intervals using Actiwatch™ motion sensors. Elk were subjected to four...
The extent of biological invasions, their role on the feeding of
native fishes and their impact on community stability were
investigated in Alsea Bay and Yaquina Bay, two estuaries on the
central Oregon coast, USA. Most nonindigenous species (NIS)
introduced in these intermediately invaded estuaries are
considered byproducts of culturing...
Aquatic and riparian systems in the western United States have been highly modified by anthropogenic impacts since Euro-American settlement. Ecological restoration is a practice that has been widely conducted around the world to mitigate the degradation of these systems. The majority of stream restoration efforts have focused on improving in-stream...
The California Current Ecosystem (CCE) is a dynamic marine ecosystem from which many socioeconomically important fisheries species are harvested. In this thesis, a genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) approach was used to examine genomic variation in an early life stage of the Dungeness crab (Cancer magister), which constitutes the most valuable single-species commercial...
Nine isolates of bacteria recovered from fish dying at
marine facilities were collected from different geographic areas.
The strains included: an isolate from chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus
tshawytscha) reared in net pens in New Zealand, an isolate
from chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) held at a laboratory in
Oregon, USA., and seven...
Biochemical variation in 12 different chinook populations, sampled from 10 hatcheries along the Columbia River and the Oregon coast, was studied with starch gel electrophoresis. An index was
used to describe the genetic differences between pairs of populations. Differences were observed between spring and fall chinook and between Columbia River...
Both leave islands, or green tree retention clusters, and thinning prescriptions have been proposed as alternative silvicultural strategies designed to sustain the structural and biological diversity of managed forests. However, the relationship of the physical structure of leave islands and thinned forests to their associated microclimates, flora, and fauna remain...
I evaluated hypotheses related to growth as a driver of depth use and diel vertical migration by bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) in a thermally stratified reservoir. I applied a bioenergetic model to evaluate growth of bull trout in relation to potential patterns of diel depth use by bull trout in...
The use of heated seawater for enhancing the culture of Pacific salmon was investigated. Food consumption rate, gross food conversion efficiency, growth rate, and survival of chum (Oncorhynchus keta) and pink (O. gorbuscha} salmon fed to satiation were determined in relation to water temperature and body weight. Both species of...
This dissertation focuses on the predator-prey relationship between two species of avian predators, Caspian terns (Hydroprogne caspia) and double-crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus), and one of their important prey types, juvenile salmonids (Oncorhynchus spp.), in the Columbia River estuary of Oregon and Washington states during the period 1998 – 2007. I...
I examined the avian biogeography of the islands of Lago Gatun, Panama, in an effort to better understand the effects of forest fragmentation in this biodiverse region, and specifically to understand the importance of fragment isolation and the mechanism behind its effects on tropical bird distribution. I combined exhaustive surveys...
A series of experiments with Aeromonas salmonicida and infectious
hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV) were carried out to determine dynamics of the
spread of infection in chinook salmon (1.2-1.98g) and rainbow trout (1.2-3.1g). It was
found in experiments with A. salmonicida that fish infected by bath immersion became
infectious at 4...