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My research interests focus on how human alteration of the landscape impacts riparian ecosystems. My research projects have ranged from evaluating the impact of urbanization on fish species in small piedmont streams of North Carolina to evaluating how the introduced N. American beaver is impacting macroinvertebrate communities in Tierra del Fuego, Chile.
My Masters thesis will continue to evaluate the impact of the beaver in Tierra del Fuego by evaluating fish communities and analyzing how the populations vary between streams impacted and not impacted by the North American beaver. The forested ecosystems of southern Chile and Argentina, one of the largest tracts of temperate forest in the Southern Hemisphere, host a singular biodiversity characterized by a high degree of endemic species. In particular the sub-Antarctic Nothofagus forests of the Magallanes Region, Chile have recently merited global attention as one of the world’s last remaining pristine wilderness areas and were recently declared by UNESCO as a biosphere reserve. These ecosystems represent a global conservation priority given their remote and relatively pristine condition. This research will include an evaluation at the stream scale using field methods including electroshocking and seining to appropriately quantify fish communities. This data will then be extrapolated to the landscape scale by incorportating GIS techniques to make broader predictions about the range of the beaver’s impact and expected fish populations.
The introduction of exotic species presents one of the biggest threats to the ecosystems’ pristine designation. In particular, the North American Beaver (Castor canadensis) and at least two trout species (Salmo trutta and Oncorhynchus mykiss) are of particular concern due to their pervasiveness throughout the landscape and the associated deleterious consequences. To date, there has been no comprehensive assessment of beaver impacts on stream ecosystems of the Magallanes Region in Chile and exotic trout distribution and abundance is relatively unknown. This study proposes to fill both of those gaps by assessing the fish populations in unaltered and beaver-impacted streams and assessing the distribution of trout and beaver in the watersheds of Tierra del Fuego. This information will aid managers in controlling invasive species populations and in the protection of the world’s southernmost forested ecosystems.
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