Large River Ecologist @INHS @illinois_river | PhD @UWMadison @WiscLimnology | BS @NotreDame @NDScience | freshwater science 🌊, invasive species 🐟, eDNA 🧬
La Grange Park, IL
Joined March 2010
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Mike Spear retweeted
Welcome Rob Mooney to PRI! 🎉 Rob recently joined the @illinois_river team at the @INHSIllinois. Get to know Rob by reading our recent interview with him: loom.ly/h7101jk
#PeopleofPRI
ALT A man stands in front of a lake with text, "People of PRI: Rob Mooney."
Crews across federal, state, and academic partners collected thousands of water quality and fish community samples before, during, and after the lock closure - a true multi-agency monitoring effort.
The BACI results were clear: turbidity declined when traffic declined
Fish responded, too!
When traffic declined, metrics of rheophilic fishes and fishes particularly sensitive to underwater sound increased in 'impact' areas relative to 'pseudo-control' areas. And gizzard shad!
Not all life history groups responded, though. Context-dependency!
This study highlights some of those ecological costs to consider when balancing the use of our rivers as significant navigation corridors AND significant ecosystems.
Article:
doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.…
Data:
doi.org/10.5066/P9EQZV10
When Illinois Waterway locks closed in 2020, a busy riverine shipping corridor ground to a halt. The river responded.
The vessel traffic pause led to improved water quality and a redistribution of fishes.
Read about it in our OA @STOTEN_journal article from @INHSillinois @USGS
When traffic halted on the Illinois Waterway, crews at @illinois_river quickly organized monitoring across hundreds of river miles to leverage this rare opportunity to study the impacts of vessel traffic on a river ecosystem.
River barges are a low-carbon means of long-distance shipping (90% more efficient than trucking and 30% more than rail) and so the shipping capacity of our rivers is expanding around the world to meet climate goals.
But the ecological cost of busier rivers is difficult to study.
In normal years, enormous barge complexes - the size of ocean liners - churn up and down the Illinois Waterway, connecting the major economic hubs of the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Huge propellers churn up sediment and wakes.
That intense traffic nearly halted in 2020.
Mike Spear retweeted
Come work with me and my awesome team on cool critters #freshwater #macroinvertebrates #LTRM – at Macomb, IL
We're #hiring: Macroinvertebrate Technicians! 🐌 This is a perfect opportunity for a current undergrad student. 🔗 Apply at loom.ly/beV3Yv4!
#riverecology #summerjob #summerfieldtech @illinois_river
ALT A freshwater mollusk in a person's hand
Mike Spear retweeted
Sleeper Populations and Climate Change| Sleeper populations of invasive species can exist in low numbers until an environmental change triggers the population to increase. For example, increased water temperature under climate change. Learn more: bit.ly/3FEuZf7
Mike Spear retweeted
IRBS is looking to hire a PhD student to help study Shovelnose Sturgeon population demographics on the Rock River. For more info check out the link below!
blogs.illinois.edu/view/7426…
@INHSillinois @PrairieResInst
Mike Spear retweeted
20 years of microbial sampling, reoccurring seasonal change, and long-term shifts from aquatic species invasions. Thrilled to see this out in @PNASNews 🎉
@quendi @TrexLab @riley_hale8 @JakeDeLake @mcmahonlab @WiscLimnology @UWMadisonCALS @NSF @USLTER
pnas.org/eprint/4YR8GPQQIH4P…
Mike Spear retweeted
I am so happy that this paper is out as a preprint (and submitted to journal)! Such a fun experience analysing the long-term @USLTER data by @WiscLimnology, and trying to understand what happened to oxygen after spiny invasion
How did an invasive zooplankton increase lake anoxia?
My latest, co-first authored with @hydrobert
(spoilers in the thread!)
@hildug @pchanson1 @JakeRWalsh @JakeDeLake
@WiscLimnology @USLTER #phenology
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
Mike Spear retweeted
How did an invasive zooplankton increase lake anoxia?
My latest, co-first authored with @hydrobert
(spoilers in the thread!)
@hildug @pchanson1 @JakeRWalsh @JakeDeLake
@WiscLimnology @USLTER #phenology
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
Mike Spear retweeted
🐟 Apply by Jan. 31! 🐟
The #INHS @illinois_river in Havana, IL is #hiring 2 aquatic/#fisheries field techs to help collect standardized long-term river monitoring data! #FishyFriday #fishsci
For details ➡️ bit.ly/3WxMAf7 🌊
@LamerJim @iBioIllinois @IllinoisNRES
Mike Spear retweeted
Great paper by @Matthew_P_Adams et al in @Ecology_Letters who assessed pop models w/ time series: "we do not need to wait for models to produce well-constrained predictions before we start using them to inform decisions" 🤩🤯
doi.org/10.1111/ele.13465
🗞️#244-2022
ALT cover page of paper "Informing management decisions for ecological networks, using dynamic models calibrated to noisy time-series data"
ALT figure 1, sorry couldn't copy and paste the legend for this figure :-(
Mike Spear retweeted
We are seeking two technicians to help with aquatic macroinvertebrate research on the Illinois and Mississippi rivers! This position will be 40 hours per week and will be based in Macomb, Illinois.
Apply by 3/15 ➡️ blogs.illinois.edu/view/7426…
@INHSillinois @PrairieResInst
Mike Spear retweeted
JOB ALERT! This is a really good one. Permanent quantitative ecologist at the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center. Goal: apply advanced quantitative methods to improve understanding of marine ecosystems in Alaska with an emphasis on salmon. Closes 1/23. bit.ly/3Xjn7qd