When to Go Against the Flow: Examining Patterns of Performance Over Multiday Migration Events in the Hawaiian Stream Fish, 'O'opu Nōpili (Sicyopterus stimpsoni).

Many animals migrate across regions of their geographic range as part of extended events, with groups of individuals proceeding through areas of travel on several successive days. Early migrating individuals may have an advantage over late migrating individuals by gaining early access to the resources at the eventual destination. For situations where early access to resources would provide an advantage, specific sets of locomotor traits might be found among individuals that are earlier migrators.

Assessing Contaminants of Emerging Concern in the Great Lakes Ecosystem: A Decade of Method Development and Practical Application.

Assessing the ecological risk of contaminants in the field typically involves consideration of a complex mixture of compounds which may or may not be detected via instrumental analyses. Further, there are insufficient data to predict the potential biological effects of many detected compounds, leading to their being characterized as contaminants of emerging concern (CECs). Over the past several years, advances in chemistry, toxicology, and bioinformatics have resulted in a variety of concepts and tools that can enhance the pragmatic assessment of the ecological risk of CECs.

Sucker Shapes, Skeletons, and Bioinspiration: How Hard and Soft Tissue Morphology Generates Adhesive Performance in Waterfall Climbing Goby Fishes.

Many teleost fish, such as gobies, have fused their paired pelvic fins into an adhesive disc. Gobies can use their pelvic suckers to generate passive adhesive forces (as in engineered suction cups), and different species exhibit a range of adhesive performance, with some even able to climb waterfalls. Previous studies have documented that, in the Hawaiian Islands, species capable of climbing higher waterfalls produce the highest passive pull-off forces, and species found at higher elevation sites are likely to have more rounded suction discs than those found in the lowest stream segments.

Using the Daphnia magna Transcriptome to Distinguish Water Source: Wetland and Stormwater Case Studies.

A major challenge in ecotoxicology is accurately and sufficiently measuring chemical exposures and biological effects given the presence of complex and dynamic contaminant mixtures in surface waters. It is impractical to quantify all chemicals in such matrices over space and time, and even if it were practical, concomitant biological effects would not be elucidated. Our study examined the performance of the Daphnia magna transcriptome to detect distinct responses across three water sources in Minnesota: laboratory (well) waters, wetland waters, and storm waters.