Life history strategies of stream fishes linked to predictors of hydrologic stability.

Life history theory provides a framework to understand environmental change based on species strategies for survival and reproduction under stable, cyclical, or stochastic environmental conditions. We evaluated environmental predictors of fish life history strategies in 20 streams intersecting a national park within the Potomac River basin in eastern North America. We sampled stream sites during 2018-2019 and collected 3801 individuals representing 51 species within 10 taxonomic families.

A comparison of techniques to sample salamander assemblages along highland streams of Maryland.

Amphibians may be useful indicators of biological condition in small streams so determining which sampling technique maximizes encounters at the least cost and at the optimal time of year is important. Area constrained surveys (ACS), used by the Maryland Biological Stream Survey, were tested against cover board surveys, drift fences with pitfall and funnel traps, quadrat leaf litter searches, and leaf litter bags. Sixteen, 100 m-long sites were established in headwater streams in the Savage River State Forest in Garrett County, Maryland.

A narrow hybrid zone between two Cottus species in Wills Creek, Potomac drainage.

We describe a narrow hybrid zone between the mottled sculpin (Cottus b. bairdi) and the Blue Ridge sculpin (C. caeruleomentum).