Lab News

Former Ruhi lab undergraduate Amin al-Jamal has published a new paper in Ecology: Aquatic top predator prefers terrestrial prey in an intermittent stream! Meet the belostomatid giant water bug Abedus indentatus, the dominant predator in fishless sections of Chalone Creek, Pinnacles National Park, California. Despite living in the water, the study found that water bugs seem to prefer prey from the terrestrial environment. Isolated pools in drying rivers have incredibly high perimeter to area (P/A) ratios, and aquatic predators such as giant water bugs enjoy the increased influx of terrestrial prey! On top of that, prey that fall into the water are less equipped to deal with an aquatic predator. The double whammy of high P/A ratios and increased prey susceptibility in intermittent streams might facilitate this cool feeding preference!

Congratulations to Ruhi Lab manager Kendall Archie on his new position as a Masters student at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. Kendall will be advised by Alison O’Dowd and is joining a project that seeks to understand the food web responses associated with the Trinity River. Kendall is bringing his benthic macroinvertebrate expertise up north and will examine salmonid food resources and diet. Thank you for being a fantastic lab manager and we wish you the best in your graduate studies!

Congratulations to postdoc Robert Fournier on the publication of the paper “Long‐term data reveal widespread phenological change across major US estuarine food webs“. Using long-term biomonitoring data, we examined climate-driven phenological shifts within and across food webs in the San Francisco, Chesapeake, and Massachusetts Bay estuaries.

Are food webs at risk of tropic mismatch & disassembly? Read more to find out!

We’re thrilled to welcome Amanda Wik and Jasmine Rios as new Ph.D. students in the Ruhi Lab! Amanda is co-advised with Ted Grantham and will be studying how dam removals in the Klamath River may be able to restore food-web dynamics and ecosystem processes – focusing on cross-ecosystem linkages between the aquatic and the riparian environment. Jasmine is co-advised with Laureano Gherardi and will be studying how increased environmental variation (‘climate whiplash’) from climate change erodes biodiversity in vernal pool seedbanks – comparing responses of animal and plant communities via mesocosm experiments and field observations. Welcome, Amanda and Jasmine – we are so excited to have you!

Congratulations to new Dr. Kyle Leathers on delivering his finishing talk! Kyle gave an overview of his impressive dissertation research and successfully completed the ceremonial crossing over Strawberry Creek (in waders). We are lucky that Kyle will be staying on with the Ruhi Lab a couple of months before beginning a postdoc at USGS exploring water quality and algae in the San Francisco Bay-Delta!

Congratulations to Tim Jäger on his magnificent Master’s defense! His thesis examined life-history plasticity of stream insects to future climates in the Sierra Nevada. Earlier snowmelt and return to low-flow conditions will likely lead to earlier peaks and smaller size at emergence. It was not a (chirono)mini undertaking as Tim processed thousands of individuals! We can’t wait to see what this newly emerged MSc flies off to do next!

We are thrilled to announce that the Ruhi Lab has received the 2023 Winkler Scholars Award to develop a pilot study on the effects of drought on the nutritional quality of subsidies emerging from intermittent streams – thus connecting aquatic and terrestrial environments.

Our study will use compound-specific stable isotope techniques to identify not only the amount and type of fatty acids present in various stream organisms, but also where these fatty acids originated. This will allow understanding how riparian predators (insectivore birds and lizards) may see their river-derived prey devaluated as a consequence of river drying. The study will take place in Chalone Creek, Pinnacles National Park.

We are immensely grateful to Dr. Matthew Winkler and his family for funding high-risk, high-reward ideas like this one!

A robust contingent from the Ruhi Lab participated in the Society for Freshwater Science Annual Meeting in Philadelphia! We presented talks on a variety of topics: estuarine phenological shifts by Robert, riparian tree-groundwater interactions at Pinnacles by Rose, effects of drought on Sierra Nevada stream communities by Kyle, flow variation and riparian birds in Southern California rivers by Melissa, and time-varying effects of Delta outflow on Longfin smelt by Parsa. It looks like they also managed to sneak in some sightseeing!

Melissa’s doctoral research project is titled “Understanding Flow-Ecology Relationships to Inform the Restoration of Effluent-Influenced Coastal Streams in Southern California.” She is quantifying how changes in flows along the Los Angeles and Santa Clara Rivers may affect birds, invertebrates, and plants. Additionally, she is exploring people’s perceptions of and priorities for flows along these rivers. Melissa’s work will assist environmental managers in understanding the socio-ecological implications of changes in riverine flows and investigate how flow can be used as a restoration tool in the context of these two sister rivers.

Left: Melissa conducts bird point counts along the Santa Clara River / Right: A great egret rests along an effluent-influenced part of the Los Angeles River

Congratulations to Kyle Leathers and Jessie Moravek – the first two Ph.D. graduates of the Ruhi Lab! Both walked at the May 2024 graduation ceremony at The Greek Theater—and both have exciting postdoc positions lined up. We are very proud of you!