Current & Recent Lab Research Projects

Triploid Walleye: a new frontier for managing cool-water predators in the West.

(2018 – 2022)

A large diploid walleye

Funding Sources:

  • Colorado Parks and Wildlife – Aquatic Research Section

Objectives:

  • Compare maturation and gonad development in triploid vs. diploid Walleyes found in the same system in Colorado.
  • Assess triploid Walleye growth and survival when stocked into systems with established diploid Walleye populations.
  • Evaluate potential dietary mechanisms that could drive differences in growth and survival between ploidies.
  • Estimate the relative survival of diploid and triploid Walleye when stocked into the same system.

Project Contacts:

Native fish passage in Front Range transition zone streams.

(2018 – 2021)

Downstream view of a series of PIT tag antennas installed at the FCRID rock ramp fishway as part of a study on Front Range fish passage

Funding Sources:

  • Colorado Parks and Wildlife – Aquatic Research Section

Objectives:

  • Evaluate the passage success of native and resident fish species at a series of existing fish passage structures along the Colorado Front Range.
  • Monitor a rock ramp fishway and a wingwall bypass channel to quantify the passage success of native and nonnative fish species under short-term and long-term conditions using fixed PIT tag antenna arrays.
  • Evaluate the relationships between passage success and timing and environmental factors such as flow, water temperature, and fishway velocities.

Project Contacts:

Effects of light level and surface roughness on the passage success of plains fishes in rock ramp fishways.

(2018 – 2021)

FPEL rock ramp fishway under power with cobbles added to test the effects of substrate roughness of fish passage success.

Funding Sources:

  • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Objectives:

  • Determine the effects of changing surface roughness between large roughness particles on the passage success of three representative species of small-bodied plains fish, the Stonecat, the Arkansas Darter, and the Flathead Chub.
  • Measure the effects of ambient light level on the passage success and behavior of three representative species of small-bodied Great Plains fishes.

Project Contacts:

Developing “freshwater cod” or Burbot (Lota lota) into a viable commercial aquaculture species in the United States.

(2017 – 2021)

A series of burbot showing differences in size and condition related to levels of unionized ammonia exposure. Photo by Ben Vaage.

Funding Sources:

Objectives:

  • Determine the juvenile Burbot tolerance to acute exposure to un-ionized ammonia.
  • Measure the effects of chronic exposure to sublethal levels of un-ionized ammonia on the growth, survival, and performance of juvenile Burbot.
  • Measure the effects of chronic exposure to hypoxia on Burbot performance and survival.
  • Measure the critical dissolved oxygen partial pressure for juvenile Burbot.

Project Contacts:

Thermal constraints on the early life history of sauger.

(2016 – 2019)

Dan Cammack holding a wild Sauger from the Bighorn River, Wyoming.

Funding Sources:

Objectives:

  • Evaluate how incubating fertilized Sauger eggs at temperatures between 10 and 22°C affects survival and time to hatch.
  • Quantify the effects of temperature (12 – 24°C) on the post-hatch development and survival of larval Sauger through the start of exogenous feeding.
  • Determine how exposing reproductive Sauger to an “above average”, fluctuating thermal scenario, prior the spawning, affects egg viability, as determined by the quantity and quality of resulting larvae that survive to hatch.

Project Contacts:

Biotic and abiotic factors that influence selenium bioaccumulation and food chain transfer in aquatic ecoystems.

(2016 – 2020)

Funding Sources:

  • Colorado Parks and Wildlife

Objectives:

  • Conduct a statewide survey of lentic and lotic environments in Colorado to evaluate Brown Trout and White Sucker selenium concentrations, along with those in the water, sediment, periphyton and invertebrates at those locations.
  • Evaluate the effects of maternal selenium exposure on Brown Trout and White Sucker hatch success, larval survivability and larval deformity, and also on their physiological and behavioral fitness.
  • Model the transfer and accumulation of selenium in Colorado aquatic environments.

Project Contacts:

If you feed them, will they grow? A dietary approach to improving the growth of juvenile cutthroat trout.

(2014 – 2018)

Funding Sources:

Objectives:

  • Identify what type of commercially-available trout or salmon diet formulations will optimize grow-out of juvenile Snake River Cutthroat Trout reared at optimal temperatures.
  • Investigate the behavior of Snake River Cutthroat Trout fed different diets when exposed to a model predator.
  • Collaborative project with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Bozeman Fish Technology Center and the University of Idaho.

Project Contacts:

Improving Rock Ramp Fishways for Small-Bodied Plains Fishes

(2013 – 2016)

Funding Source:

  • Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative
  • Colorado Parks and Wildlife

Objectives:

  • Design and construct a variable-geometry recirculating flume to allow testing of full-scale fishways under laboratory conditions with control of variables such as slope, flow, and water temperature.
  • Evaluate the effect of rock ramp fishway slope on the passage success of three representative species of fish from the U.S. Great Plains (Stonecats, Flathead Chub, Arkansas Darters.
  • Evaluate the effect of adding sinuosity to a rock ramp fishway on the passage success of three species of fish from the U.S. Great Plains.

Project Contacts:

Developing Fish Passage Structures for Eastern Plains Fishes

(2009 – 2015)

stream diversion for fish passage

Funding Source:

  • Colorado Parks and Wildlife
  • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
  • Colorado Springs Utilities

Objectives:

  • Measure the passage performance of a wide range of fishes found in Colorado’s Front Range and Eastern Plains streams, including flathead chub, suckermouth minnow, plains topminnow, stonecat, and white sucker.
  • Evaluate the performance of existing fish passage structures located in the Boulder Creek drainage with PIT-tagged, wild-caught fish.
  • Test the passage ability of common configurations of rock ramp fishways with a subset of fish from CO’s eastern plains.

Project Contacts:

Cost-Effective, Alternative Protein Diets for Rainbow Trout

(2009 – 2013)

Fisheries lab equipment
Fish samples in cooler

Funding Source:

  • Western Regional Aquaculture Center

Objectives:

  • Measure the survival, growth, and performance of rainbow trout fed custom diets featuring different combinations of low-impact protein sources.
  • Determine how the different diets affect rainbow trout oxygen consumption rates.
  • Determine how the different diets affect rainbow trout flesh quality.

Project Contacts:

Development of Barriers to the Upstream Migration of Burbot and White Suckers

(2009 – 2012)

researchers handling fish in field

Funding Source:

  • Wyoming Game and Fish Department
  • US Bureau of Reclamation (Upper Colorado Region)

Objectives:

  • Measure the swimming and jumping performance of burbot and white sucker.
  • Use the swimming and jumping data to develop guidelines for the design of effective barriers to the upstream migration of these species into sensitive habitats for native fishes like the bluehead and flannelmouth sucker and the roundtail chub.

Project Contacts: