Aquatic & fishery science research at AWAE focuses on the environmental factors responsible for the creation, maintenance, and regulation of fish populations and their interactions in aquatic ecosystems. Topics covered range from zoogeographic descriptions, to detailed characterizations of populations and their habitats, to an understanding of ecosystem processes and influences on resource distributions, abundance, and productivity. Research places an increasing emphasis on predictive modeling, visualization products, and decision support systems to improve predictions about the magnitude and extent to which human activities and natural changes influence fish populations and aquatic ecosystems. Examples of previous projects and ongoing research include: the eDNAtlas Project, the bull trout eDNA project, impacts of cattle grazing on stream fishes, the impacts of nonnative species on native fish assemblages and How science can inform recovery of Idaho salmon and steelhead.

Recent publication: Crowd-sourced databases as essential elements for Forest Service partnerships and aquatic resource conservation