Literature

This page serves as a shared, living bibliography for the seminar. Mack will add citations for the papers discussed in and outside of class each week. The goal is to create a centralized set of references that captures key concepts and methods used in aquatic ecology - particularly those related to student’s interests.

Students, please treat this as a collaborative resource. If you bring a paper to the class, please email the citation (with DOI) to Mack so he can add it here.

Foundational Papers

Life History

Winemiller, Kirk O., and Kenneth A. Rose. 1992. “Patterns of Life-History Diversification in North American Fishes: Implications for Population Regulation.” Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 49 (10): 2196–2218.

Perkin, Joshuah S., Natalie E. Knorp, Thomas C. Boersig, Amy E. Gebhard, Lucas A. Hix, and Thomas C. Johnson. 2017. “Life History Theory Predicts Long-Term Fish Assemblage Response to Stream Impoundment.” Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 74 (2): 228–39.

Atkinson, Carla L., Alex J. Franzen, Garrett W. Hopper, Jonathan W. Lopez, Zachery D. Zbinden, and Caryn C. Vaughn. 2025. “Environmental Gradients Drive Convergence in Life History Strategies among Disparate but Coevolved Taxonomic Groups.” Ecology 106 (12): e70273.

Poff, LeReoy N., Julian D. Olden, Nicole K.M. Viera, Debra S. Finn, Mark P. Simmons, and Boris C. Kondratieff. 2006. “Functional trait niches of North American lotic insects: traits-based ecological applications in light of phylogenetic relationships.” J.N. Am. Benthol. Soc. 25 (4): 730-755.

Verberk, Wilco C.E.P., Henk Siepel, and Hans Esselink. 2008. “Life-history strategies in freshwater macroinvertebrates.” Freshwater Biology 53 (9): 1722-1738.

Hitt, Nathaniel P., Karli M. Rogers, Zachary A. Kelly, Josh Henesy, and John E. Mullican. 2020. “Fish life history trends indicate increasing flow stochasticity in an unregulated river” Ecosphere 11(2): e03026

Natural Flow Regime

Poff, N. Leroy, J. David Allan, Mark B. Bain, James R. Karr, Karen L. Prestegaard, Brian D. Richter, Richard E. Sparks, and Julie C. Stromberg. 1997. “The Natural Flow Regime.” Bioscience 47 (11): 769–84.

Lytle, David A., and N. Leroy Poff. 2004. “Adaptation to Natural Flow Regimes.” Trends in Ecology & Evolution 19 (2): 94–100.

Poff, N. Leroy, and Julie K. H. Zimmerman. 2010. “Ecological Responses to Altered Flow Regimes: A Literature Review to Inform the Science and Management of Environmental Flows: Review of Altered Flow Regimes.” Freshwater Biology 55 (1): 194–205.

River Continuum Concept (RCC)

Vannote, Robin L., G. Wayne Minshall, Kenneth W. Cummins, James R. Sedell, and Colbert E. Cushing. 1980. “The River Continuum Concept.” Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 37 (1): 130–37.

Doretto, Alberto, Elena Piano, and Courtney E. Larson. 2020. “The River Continuum Concept: Lessons from the Past and Perspectives for the Future.” Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 77 (11): 1853–64.

River Ecosystem Synthesis (RES)

Thorp, James H., Martin C. Thoms, and Michael D. Delong. 2006. “The Riverine Ecosystem Synthesis: Biocomplexity in River Networks across Space and Time.” River Research and Applications 22 (2): 123–47.

Maasri, Alain, James H. Thorp, Nicholas Kotlinski, Jens Kiesel, Bolortsetseg Erdenee, and Sonja C. Jähnig. 2021. “Variation in Macroinvertebrate Community Structure of Functional Process Zones along the River Continuum: New Elements for the Interpretation of the River Ecosystem Synthesis.” River Research and Applications 37 (4): 665–74.

Thorp, James H., Martin C. Thoms, Michael D. Delong, and Alain Maasri. 2023. “The Ecological Nature of Whole River Macrosystems: New Perspectives from the Riverine Ecosystem Synthesis.” Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 11 (1184433): 1184433.

Methodological Papers

Scale in Ecology

Levin, Simon A. 1992. “The Problem of Pattern and Scale in Ecology: The Robert H. Macarthur Award Lecture.” Ecology 73 (6): 1943–67.

Crossley, Michael S., Amanda R. Meier, Emily M. Baldwin, Lauren L. Berry, Leah C. Crenshaw, Glen L. Hartman, Doris Lagos-Kutz, et al. 2020. “No Net Insect Abundance and Diversity Declines across US Long Term Ecological Research Sites.” Nature Ecology & Evolution 4 (10): 1368–76.

Trait-Based Ecology

Poff, N. Leroy, Matthew I. Pyne, Brian P. Bledsoe, Christopher C. Cuhaciyan, and Daren M. Carlisle. 2010. “Developing Linkages between Species Traits and Multiscaled Environmental Variation to Explore Vulnerability of Stream Benthic Communities to Climate Change.” Journal of the North American Benthological Society 29 (4): 1441–58.

McLean, Matthew, David Mouillot, Martin Lindegren, Sébastien Villéger, Georg Engelhard, Juliette Murgier, and Arnaud Auber. 2019. “Fish Communities Diverge in Species but Converge in Traits over Three Decades of Warming.” Global Change Biology 25 (11): 3972–84.

Streit, Robert P., and David R. Bellwood. 2023. “To Harness Traits for Ecology, Let’s Abandon ‘Functionality.’” Trends in Ecology & Evolution 38 (5): 402–11.

Space and Time

Rimmer, Langston L. H., Jacob F. Schaefer, and Melvin L. Warren. 2026. “Leveraging A Spatiotemporally Large Dataset to Test Predictions of Life History Theory in Stream Fish Communities.” Ecology of Freshwater Fish 35 (1): e70036.

Baldigo, Barry P., Scott D. George, and Gregory B. Lawrence. 2025. “Fish-Assemblage and Water-Quality Recovery with Declining Acidic Deposition in Adirondack Mountain Streams, New York, USA.” Freshwater Science 44 (4): 443–62.

OEPA Papers

Norton, Susan B., Susan M. Cormier, Marc Smith, and R. Christian Jones. 2000. “Can Biological Assessments Discriminate among Types of Stress? A Case Study from the Eastern Corn Belt Plains Ecoregion.” Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 19 (4): 1113–19.

Schubauer-Berigan, Mary K., Marc Smith, Jeff Hopkins, and Susan M. Cormier. 2000. “Using Historical Biological Data to Evaluate Status and Trends in the Big Darby Creek Watershed (Ohio, USA).” Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 19 (4): 1097–1105.

Yoder, Chris O., Edward T Rankin, Marc A. Smith, Brian C. Alsdorf, David J. Altfater, Charles E. Boucher, Robert J. Miltner, Dennis E. Mishne, Randall E. Sanders, and Roger F. Thoma. 2005. Changes in Fish Assemblage Status in Ohio’s Nonwadeable Rivers and Streams over Two Decades. American Fisheries Society Symposium 45:000-000

Yoder, Chris O., Edward T Rankin, Marc A. Smith, Brian C. Alsdorf, David J. Altfater, Charles E. Boucher, Robert J. Miltner, Dennis E. Mishne, Randall E. Sanders, and Roger F. Thoma. 2019. Degradation and Recovery of Scioto River (Ohio, USA) Fish Assemblages from Presettlement to Present-Day Conditions. American Fisheries Society Symposium 45:000-000