Research in the River and Stream Ecology Lab focuses on the ecology and management of flowing waters. We strongly believe that understanding rivers requires a transdisciplinary ecosystem approach that combines ecology, hydrology, geomorphology and that incorporates various levels of temporal and spatial resolution e.g., landscape ecology and GIS. 

My students, collaborators, and I are interested in the interaction of stream fishes and invertebrates at the population and community levels within their habitat. We can be also found scraping rocks for algae and examining organic matter dynamics. Laboratory and field experiments are combined with broad-scale comparisons of the structure and function of flowing waters.

Much of our research is applied in nature which serves to better the understanding and management of Ontario's flowing waters. Basic science is needed in many cases to answer applied questions. Many of our projects contain some element of restoration ecology.

Lab themes: hydropower, urbanization and land use impacts, biotic and abiotic inventory and assessment methods, river typology, life history variation, productive capacity, biodiversity and species at risk.

Current Projects: Follow links for more project information.
- Development of a broad-scale monitoring program for Ontario’s flowing waters 
- Regional and temporal variation in the thermal habitat of Great Lake streams
- Landscape influences on flow regime characteristics in Ontario
- Spatial patterns of benthos in relation to natural and regulated flow regimes
- Influence of hydropower peaking on invertebrate drift
- Flow regimes and the productive capacity of semi-alluvial streams in Ontario
- Dual-Frequency IDentification SONar (DIDSON): Application in the Michipicoten River, Wawa
- Influence of flow and environmental variables on fish migration in the Michipicoten River, Wawa
- Do extremes in flow and temperature influence stream fish communities?
- Stream fish community stability and our ability to detect change
- Growth and spatial distribution of fishes in hydropeaking rivers of northern Ontario
- The longitudinal distribution of benthic invertebrates in regulated and natural rivers

Past Projects:
- Fish species traits and communities in relation to a habitat template for Arctic rivers
- Development of a netting protocol for large rivers in Ontario
- Aquatic resources in Ontario’s Far North: State of knowledge
- Incorporating Lakes within the River Discontinuum
- Survival, growth and emigration of stocked Atlantic salmon in Lake Ontario streams
- Thermal regime spatialtemporal variation and the classification of streams in the Great Lakes Basin
- Evaluation of single-pass backpack electric fishing for stream fish community monitoring.
- Long-term trends in stream water temperatures in Ontario
- The influence of climate change on the thermal diversity of fishes in Ontario streams
- Evaluation of single-pass electrofishing to monitor Ontario’s redside dace populations
- Evaluation of single-pass electrofishing for monitoring stream fish communities
- Restoring a brook trout population using F1 splake