Research goals

Efficient methods for estimating fishing effort

Understanding the response of fishing effort to changes in regulations, fishing quality, and other environmental changes is an important step towards active adaptive fisheries management. 

However, collecting data across lake-rich landscapes is resource- and labor-intensive. Model-based methods can integrate data collected from many lakes and a variety of methods to account for annual, seasonal, and daily dynamics of fishing effort while producing lake-specific fishing effort estimates. 

Opportunities for data collection include on-site boat surveys, aerial surveys, and satellite imagery. 
Adaptive angler response to regulations and other changes

Fisheries managers can't always predict how anglers will respond to regulations such as closed seasons, minimum length limits, and possession limits. Anglers may change their behavior to compensate for the new restrictions, or they may choose to leave the fishery entirely. 

Understanding angler response to regulations is an important step towards effectively limiting harvest below safe harvest levels as well as understanding the resulting socioeconomic effects of changes in regulations. 

We use stated and revealed preference analysis to investigate changes in angler behavior. These analyses include discrete choice experiments and time series analysis of Vessel Trip Report data. Further research will investigate changes in freshwater fishing effort associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and changes in species composition due to climate change. 
Picture
Photo courtesy of Sebastian Wallroth
Drivers of individual and population-level heterogeneity in Eurasian perch

While I mainly study anglers these days, I enjoy forays into fish trophic ecology. Eurasian and yellow perch are useful model species for studying the ecology of generalist predators. I'm interested in how their habitat characteristics influence the trophic niche of individuals and populations. 

I used stable isotope methods to investigate how littoral structure (submerged vegetation and woody structure) and primary productivity influenced the trajectory of ontogenetic niche shifts of perch in 12 gravel pit lakes. Perch that grow large enough to prey on other fish tend to be the larger individuals targeted by anglers. This relationship between littoral structure, productivity, and ontogenetic niche shifts therefore has implications for the use of habitat enhancement in fisheries management. 
Systems thinking in science education

​As a former middle and high school science teacher, I remain passionate about outdoor and interdisciplinary learning as a vital component of science education. 

Artificial boundaries between scientific disciplines inhibit student understanding of our planet as an integrated system. Interdisciplinary learning allows students to make connections across scales and disciplines. Recreational fisheries are excellent model systems for teaching the connections between physical, chemical, biological, and social components of a system with which they can directly interact.