Lab News

I am Kyle Leathers, a first-year PhD student interested in how aquatic communities are affected by environmental stressors, species interactions, and the combination between the two. My research investigates these topics, focusing on the effects of thermal regimes on stream food webs controlled by the predatory Coastal Giant Salamander (Dicamptodon tenebrosus).

I will apply observational, experimental, and modeling approaches to achieve realism, control, and generalizability in this research. Diverse pool-riffle sites throughout a watershed and artificial streams provide relevant scales for fieldwork and experiments respectively. I will use random forest algorithms to determine the relative importance of warming to community structure. Additionally, I will test food web stability using stable isotope analysis. My results will ultimately inform a Spatial Stream Network (SSN) model that predicts stream food-web structure and Coastal Giant Salamander abundance under future climate change scenarios. Understanding how food-web structure responds to increased water temperature can improve our ability to anticipate associated risks such as trophic cascades, pollutant bioaccumulation, and algal blooms.

• We are excited to announce that we are starting two undergraduate research projects! Chen Li, URAP scholar, is assisting us with the design of the artificial stream system. Gabby Doerschlag, SPUR scholar, is going to study benthic invertebrates in Strawberry Creek.
• We got a SESYNC working group funded! This is a 2-year, collaborative project with several institutions across the U.S. to work on sustainable water management through dam operations, and advance quantitative (time-series) methods that can help us get there. This project will start in January 2019. More on this soon!
• We hosted Rachel Stubbington, who visited us from Nottingham Trent University (UK) to explore collaborations on intermittent river ecology.
• Also, check out the book chapter on hydrological alteration and biological invasions, part of the book on Multiple Stressors in River Ecosystems (edited by Sabater, Elosegi & Ludwig).
• And last but not least, we received the final pieces of lab equipment we were waiting for: stereomicroscopes, an oven, and a microbalance. Ready for aquatic invertebrate business!

• This has been a hectic summer. We are excited to announce that Kyle Leathers just joined the lab–welcome to our first graduate student!
• We also finalized Lise‘s postdoc project on the alteration-invasion nexus in rivers nation-wide, and she will be soon moving on to bigger things in Seattle. Visiting graduate student Jordi went back to the Catalan Institute for Water Research after a productive stay analyzing stable isotope data from Catalan streams.
• We are NSF funded! An exciting Macrosystems collaborative project (‘Scaling Climate, Connectivity, and Communities in Streams’) will start on January 1st. More on this soon!
• Albert coauthored a Science perspective on the use of remote sensing data to determine the distribution and trends in global freshwater habitat.

• Albert attended the ‘Boundary Spanning Symposium‘ at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), and presented on the effects of dams on river flow regimes.
• Albert & Jordi participated in the ‘Eyes on the Eel‘ synoptic survey, and enjoyed a deluxe tour at the UC Angelo Reserve with Mary Power.
• Two proposals are on the works, one of them involving restored wetlands in the San Francisco Bay.

• May was travel month! Albert participated in a Powell Center workshop on the Budyko framework–this interdisciplinary working group is ongoing and will present in next AGU Fall Meeting on the cumulative effects of dams on flow regime alteration.
• The Berkeley Freshwater Ecology labs also attended the Society for Freshwater Science Annual Meeting in Detroit, MI. It was a great combination of science & fun.
• Meanwhile, visiting researcher Maria went back to Spain after a productive stay analyzing arthropod metacommunity data from intermittent streams.
• Last but not least, the lab renovations were completed!

Interested in how hydropower dams affect flow regimes and downstream biodiversity? Here we sought to understand the ecological effects of flow management for hydropower (hydropeaking). Collaborating with Darold Batzer’s lab at UGA, we found that hydropeaking can spatially synchronize trait fluctuations and simplify the functional structure of downstream invertebrate communities. Still interested? Then read more below!

Abstract

Our new work on streamflow gages and the importance of long-term data is out! See abstract below, and check out our Shiny App to assess availability of streamflow data over space and time:

Abstract. Reliable accounting of freshwater resources is key to managing hydrologic risk and balancing freshwater allocations for ecosystems and society. However, recent claims have argued that the global hydrometric network is not keeping pace with monitoring needs. Here we examine this question globally and reveal that over the past four decades the number of streamgaging stations reporting to global, open datasets has been declining. In the United States, a declining trend was reversed by the turn of the century, but high volatility at the river basin scale threatens continued monitoring in over a quarter of the river basins of the conterminous United States. We propose to prioritize streamgaging rescue by identifying watersheds that heavily rely on hydrologic data to support freshwater biodiversity conservation, and to manage flood or water scarcity risk to human populations. We argue that actions at different institutional levels are needed to secure the accumulation of long-term data needed for sustainable water management.

Ruhi, A., Messager, M.L. and Olden, J.D., 2018. Tracking the pulse of the Earth’s fresh waters. Nature Sustainability, 1(4), p.198

Last Saturday the Power, Carlson, Grantham, and Ruhi labs “staycationed” together. After a morning of science talks on campus, we explored the ponds of Briones Regional Park. We were lucky enough to witness several California newts mating–see below a close-up of these so-cute (but highly-toxic) creatures. The retreat concluded at Triple Rock Brewery in  Berkeley. Great day all around, lots of interesting conversations and fun! Will repeat soon.