Marine and coastal sedimentary archives show that the Cascadia Subduction Zone can generate great earthquakes of ~M9, most recently in 1700 CE, yet we still know little of the impacts of these events inland of the Pacific coast. Inland lakes have recently been exploited for their use as paleoseismic records...
At a time of rapid global change, a socio-ecological system (SES) approach can provide a framework through which to quantify and communicate the risks and uncertainties of coupled human-natural systems. Islands, and tropical coral reef islands in particular, can be excellent models for SES research since they may be considered...
The Pacific Oyster (Crassostrea gigas) is one of the most economically and ecologically significant shellfish species worldwide. In the Pacific Northwest United States (PNW), the sustainability oyster stocks is increasingly threatened by ocean acidification (OA), which has had significant negative effects on the aquaculture industry in this region over the...
Most benthic marine organisms have a bipartite life with an early pelagic stage that enables dispersal of offspring, connecting spatially separated populations, and a late stage where individuals reside in a benthic habitat. Settlement of pelagic offspring to bottom associated substrates is the process that connects the two life history...
The present study investigated the effects of stress and exercise on seawater (SW) adaptation and cortisol dynamics in juvenile steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss). To examine the effects of stress, fish acclimated to freshwater (FW) were subjected for 3 hours to confinement stress in FW, and subsequently SW (25 ppt) was introduced...
Low copy number anonymous nuclear loci were used to search for species markers in four species of Klamath Basin suckers. We sequenced 28 randomly chosen loci representing 10,421 bp; 21 loci were similar to sequences in GenBank. Eight fixed sequence differences were found among Klamath species. Locus 120 contained rare...
The United States Pacific Northwest is well known for its shellfish farming. Historically, commercial harvests were dominated by the native Olympia oyster, Ostrea lurida, but over-exploitation, habitat degradation, and competition and predation by non-native species has drastically depleted their densities and extirpated many local populations. As a result, shellfish aquaculture...
Establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) has been documented to effectively manage marine resource's diversity and enhance fisheries productivity. However, there must be a critical consideration of how these sites are selected and the actual description of the site itself. Its effectiveness is greatly dependent on understanding these habitats and...
This dissertation develops mixed family selection for Pacific oysters using marker-based pedigree reconstruction. It focuses on improving the efficiency of parentage assignment, determining the optimum life stage to mix oyster families for rearing and selection, comparing mixed-family and separate-family selective breeding in the field, and applying the mixed method to...
There are seven commercially important species of salmon and trout (genera Oncorhynchus and Salmo) in North America, many of which are closely related but command markedly different prices. The purpose of this research was to provide improved and novel methods for the detection of salmon species substitution on the commercial...