Welcome to the website for

 Frank J. Rahel

Professor of Zoology and Physiology

University of Wyoming

 

Contact information:  Dr. Frank J. Rahel, Professor and Head

                               Department of Zoology and Physiology

                               Box 3166, University of Wyoming

                               Laramie, WY  82071

                               Phone: (307) 766-4212  Fax: (307) 766-5625

                               Email: frahel@uwyo.edu

                               website: www.uwyo.edu/frahel

Text Box: Bonneville cutthroat trout Text Box: J. R. Tomelleri

 

Academic degrees:

    B.A., Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, 1974

    M.S., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1977

    Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1982

 

 

Areas of expertise:

    Fish ecology,

    Fisheries management

    Landscape ecology

    Climate change

    Invasive aquatic species

 

 

Courses taught

Fisheries Management, Ichthyology, General Ecology, Biological Invasions, Landscape Ecology

 

Research interests

    My research involves fish ecology with a particular focus on streams, habitat relationships, and landscape ecology.  My graduate students and I are addressing issues of fish habitat use and movement patterns in regards to both large spatial scales and patchiness.  We are interested in what constitutes a habitat patch, how these patches are rearranged by disturbances such as floods, and what factors influence fish movement among patches.  Another area of interest is the homogenization of aquatic biota across the world through habitat alteration and species introductions.  Much of our research involves species of conservation concern including native trout and nongame fishes such as native minnows in prairie streams. 

Basinwide movement of cutthroat trout

     An aerial view of the Smiths Fork drainage upstream of Cokeville, Wyoming.  The Smiths Fork is the river on the right.  The irrigation canals present in this photo create fertile agricultural fields but also are a potential sink habitat for migrating fish.  We evaluated movement of Bonneville cutthroat trout throughout the basin in terms of the need to exploit complementary habitats to meet different life history needs.

 

Conservation of native fishes.

One of current projects involves interactions between a native specie of conservation concern, roundtail chub, and an introduced predator, lake trout, in glacial lakes near Pinedale Wyoming.  The project is in collaboration with Dr. Wayne Hubert of the Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit,  the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.  Our objectives are to describe habitat use by roundtail chub and to determine if predation by lake trout is affecting roundtail chub populations.  A graduate student, Sarah Laske, is assessing habitat use with various gear types and characterizing fish diets using both traditional stomach analysis and stable isotope approaches. 

 

  

                                        roundtail chub

                                       

 

Application of landscape ecology concepts to the study of fish movement in streams.

            An important issue in landscape ecology involves how the location, size, and dynamics of habitat patches influence biological communities. In streams, woody debris jams and macrophyte beds form a mosaic of habitat patches important for many fish species.  The goal of this research is to document the creation, loss and rearrangement of habitat patches in streams and determine how such patch dynamics influence fish assemblages.  Habitat patches are mapped in a section of the Laramie River using high-precision GPS technology.  Patch location and size information are then imported into a Geographic Information System (GIS) where we  assess changes in patch distributions following annual flood events.  Use of patches by fish is assessed by electrofishing surveys and by following movements of tagged individuals.  One hypothesis is that patch creation/loss will have profound effects on fish assemblage composition at local scales (e.g. a 100 m reach), but lesser effects at larger scales as patch creation and loss balance each other in a manner similar to the shifting mosaic pattern of temperate forests.  Thus, fish assemblage stability will increase as spatial scale increases.  Another hypothesis is that inter-patch movement by fish will depend both on the quality of a given patch and the nature of the intervening habitat conditions (or matrix in landscape terminology). 

The Laramie River is a prairie stream with occasional gallery forests of cottonwoods and willows.  We are studying how fish use habitat patches and how spring floods influence the dynamics of patches.  The top photo to the right shows the Laramie River in late summer.  The bottom photo shows the same reach during spring runoff.  The "X" marks the base of the same tree and helps to illustrate the magnitude of flooding.

 

 

 

Current graduate student openings:

Project 1:  The biology of invasive of fish species

        Biological invasions are considered one of the major threats to conserving native fish species.  One potential research area involves predicting the ecological characteristics of nonnative species that succeed in becoming established versus those that fail to become established.  Another involves understanding how abiotic and community characteristics influence the susceptibility of various ecosystems to biological invasions.  How climate change will influence biological invasions is another timely research topic. We have been assembling a data base of introduced fish species in the central Rocky Mountain region that would allow a student to explore some of the above questions. Send resume, summary of career goals, copy of transcript, and GRE scores to Dr. Frank J. Rahel, Dept. of Zoology and Physiology, Box 3166, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071.  For more information: email frahel@uwyo.edu or call 307-766-4212.

 

 

Current graduate students and post-docs

Nathan Cook (B.S. University of Wyoming).  Master's thesis: Status of anthropogenically-isolated populations of Colorado River cutthroat trout in the North Fork of the Little Snake River drainage. (Co-advisor with Dr. Wayne A. Hubert).

Daniel C. Dauwalter (B.A. Gustavus Adolphus College, M.S. University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Ph.D. Oklahoma State University).  Current research: Development of protocols for monitoring management indicator species in U.S. National Forests.

Sarah Laske (B.S. University of Illinois).  Master's thesis:  Habitat use by roundtail chub in relation to predation by lake trout.

Eriek Hansen (B.S. Utah State University, M.S. Utah State University).  Doctoral project:  Winter ecology of fishes in a plains stream.

 

Selected Publications:

Rahel, F.J. 2007.  Biogeographic barriers, connectivity, and biotic homogenization: it’s a small world after all.  Freshwater Biology, In Press.

Schrank, A.J. and F.J. Rahel. 2006.  Factors influencing summer movement patterns of Bonneville cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii utah).  Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 63:660-669.

Quist, M.C., M.R. Bower, W.A. Hubert and F.J. Rahel.  2006.  Spatial patterns of fish assemblage structure in a tributary system of the Upper Colorado River basin.  Journal of Freshwater Ecology 21:673-680.

Quist, M., W.A. Hubert, and F.J. Rahel. 2006. Concurrent assessment of fish and habitat in warmwater streams in Wyoming. Fisheries Management & Ecology 13:9-20.

Kondolf, G.M., S. O’Daniel, G. Poole, F.J. Rahel, E.H. Stanley, E. Wohl, A. Bang, J. Carlstrom, C. Cristoni, H. Huber, S. Koljonen, P. Louhi, and K. Nakamura.  2006.  Process-based ecological river restoration: Visualising three-dimensional connectivity and dynamic vectors to recover lost linkages. Ecology and Society 11(2):5 [online] URL: http//www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss2/art5/.

Roberts, J.J. and F. J. Rahel.  2005.  Accuracy of aerial telemetry in fisheries studies.  North American Journal of Fisheries Management: 25:660-666.

Quist, M., WA. Hubert, & F.J. Rahel. 2005. Fish assemblage structure following impoundment of a Great Plains river. Western North American Naturalist 65:53-63.

Quist, M., F.J. Rahel, and W.A. Hubert.  2005.  Hierarchical faunal filters: an approach to assessing effects of habitat and nonnative species on native fishes.  Ecology of Freshwater Fish 14:1-16.

Rahel, F.J. 2004. Unauthorized fish introductions: fisheries management of the people, for the people, or by the people?  Pages 431-444 in M.J. Nickum, P.M. Mazik, J.G. Nickum, and D.D. MacKinlay, editors. Propagated Fishes in Resource Management, American Fisheries Society, Symposium 44, American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, MD.   Invited article.

Schrank, A.J. and F.J. Rahel.  2004.  Movement patterns in inland cutthroat trout: management and conservation implications.  Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 61:1528-1537.

Rahel, F.J. 2004. Introduction to GIS in fisheries.  Pages 1-12 in W.L. Fisher and F.J. Rahel, editors. Geographic information systems in fisheries.  American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, MD.

Fisher, W.L. and Rahel F.J.  2004.  Geographic information systems applications in stream and river fisheries.  Pages 49-84 in W.L. Fisher and F.J. Rahel, editors. Geographic information systems in fisheries.  American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, MD.

Novinger, D.L. and F.J. Rahel.  2003. Is isolating cutthroat trout above artificial barriers in small headwater streams an effective long-term conservation strategy?  Conservation Biology. 17:772-781. 

Johnstone, H.C. and F.J. Rahel.  2003. Assessing temperature tolerance of cutthroat trout based on constant and cycling thermal regimes.  Transactions of the American Fisheries Society.  132:92-99. 

Schrank, A.J., F.J. Rahel, and H.C. Johnstone. 2003. Evaluating laboratory-derived thermal criteria in the field: an example involving cutthroat trout.  Transactions of the American Fisheries Society.  132:100-109. 

Rahel, F.J.  2002. Homogenization of freshwater faunas.  Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics.  Volume 33:291-315. 

Kruse, C.G., W.A. Hubert, and F.J. Rahel. 2001. An assessment of headwater isolation as a conservation strategy for cutthroat populations in the Absaroka Mountains of Wyoming.  Northwest  Science 75:1-11. 

Rahel, F.J. 2000. Homogenization of fish faunas across the United States. 2000. Science 288:854-856. 

Rahel, F.J. and N.P. Nibbelink. 1999. Spatial patterns in relations among brown trout distribution, summer air temperature, and stream size in Rocky Mountain streams.   Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. 56(Supplement 1):43-51. 

Taniguchi, Y., F.J. Rahel, D.C. Novinger, and K.G. Gerow.  1998.  Temperature mediation of competitive interactions among three fish species that replace each other along longitudinal stream gradients.  Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences  55:1894-1901. 

Patton, T.M., F.J. Rahel, and W.A. Hubert. 1998. Using historical data to assess changes in Wyoming’s fish fauna.  Conservation Biology 12:1120-1129. 

Thompson, P.D. and F.J. Rahel.  1998.  Evaluation of human-made barriers in small Rocky Mountain streams in preventing upstream movement of brook trout.  North American Journal of Fisheries Management 18:206-210.  

Rahel, F.J.  1997.  From Johnny Appleseed to Dr. Frankenstein: changing values and the legacy of fisheries management.  Fisheries 22(8):8-9. 

Kruse, C.G., W.A. Hubert, and F.J. Rahel.  1997.  Geomorphic influences on the distribution of Yellowstone cutthroat trout in the Absaroka Mountains, Wyoming.  Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 126:418-427. 

Rahel, F.J., C.J. Keleher, and J.L. Anderson.  1996. Potential habitat loss and population fragmentation for cold water fish in the North Platte River drainage of the Rocky Mountains: Response to climate warming.  Limnology and Oceanography 41:1116-1123. 

Thompson, P.D. and F.J. Rahel.  1996.  Evaluation of depletion-removal electrofishing of brook trout in small Rocky Mountain streams.  North American Journal of Fisheries Management  16:332-339. 

Keleher, C.J. and F.J. Rahel.  1996.  Thermal limits to salmonid distributions in the Rocky Mountain region and potential habitat loss due to global warming: A Geographic Information System (GIS) approach.  Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 125:1-13. 

Rahel, F.J. and  J.W. Nutzman.  1994.  Foraging in a lethal environment: predation by fish on Chaoborus in the hypoxic zone of a stratified lake.  Ecology 75:1246-1253. 

De Staso, J. III and F.J. Rahel.  1994.  Influence of water temperature on interactions between young Colorado River cutthroat trout and brook trout in a laboratory stream.  Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 123:289-297. 

Kolar, C.S. and F.J. Rahel. 1993.  Interaction of a biotic factor (predator presence) and an abiotic factor (low oxygen) as an influence on benthic invertebrate communities. Oecologia 95:210-219. 

Johnson, S.L., F.J. Rahel, and W.A. Hubert.  1992.  Factors influencing the size structure of brook trout populations in Wyoming beaver ponds.  North American Journal of Fisheries Management 12:118-124. 

Bozek, M.A. and F.J. Rahel.  1992.  Generality of microhabitat suitability models for young Colorado River cutthroat trout across sites and among years in Wyoming streams.  Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 49:552-564. 

Rahel, F.J. and W.A. Hubert.  1991.  Fish assemblages and habitat gradients in a Rocky Mountain-Great Plains stream: biotic zonation and additive patterns of community change.  Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 120:319-332. 

Bozek, M.A. and F.J. Rahel.  1991.  Assessing habitat requirements of young Colorado River cutthroat trout by use of macrohabitat and microhabitat analysis.  Transactions of the American Fisheries Society  120:571-581. 

Bozek, M.A. and F.J. Rahel.  1991.  Comparison of streamside visual counts to electrofishing estimates of Colorado River cutthroat trout fry and adults.  North American Journal of Fisheries Management 11:38-42. 

Rahel, F.J. 1990.  The hierarchical nature of community persistence: a problem of scale.  The American Naturalist  136:328-344. 

Rahel, F.J. and C.S. Kolar.  1990.  Trade-offs in the response of mayflies to low oxygen and fish predation.  Oecologia 84:39-44. 

Winkle, P.L., W.A. Hubert, and F.J. Rahel.  1990.  Relations between brook trout standing stocks and habitat features in beaver ponds in southeastern Wyoming.  North American Journal of Fisheries Management 10:72-79. 

Rahel, F.J. 1989. Nest defense and aggressive interactions between small benthic fish and crayfish. Environmental Biology of Fishes 24:301-306. 

Rahel, F.J. 1989. Simulation of vertical limnological gradients. Journal Freshwater Ecology 5:247-252. 

Hubert, W.A. and F.J. Rahel.  1989.  Relations of physical habitat to abundance of four nongame fishes in high plains streams: a test of Habitat Suitability Index models.  North American Journal of Fisheries Management 9:332-340. 

Rahel, F.J. and R.A. Stein.  1988.  Complex predator-prey interactions and predator intimidation among crayfish, piscivorous fish, and small benthic fishes.  Oecologia 75:94-98. 

Rahel, F.J.  1986.  Biogeographic influences on fish species composition of northern Wisconsin lakes with applications for lake acidification studies.  Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 43:124-134. 

Rahel, F.J., J.D. Lyons and P.A. Cochran.  1984.  Stochastic or deterministic regulation of assemblage structure.  It may depend on how the assemblage is defined.  The American Naturalist 124:583-589. 

Rahel, F.J. 1984.  Factors structuring fish assemblages along a bog lake successional gradient.  Ecology 65:1276-1289. 

Magnuson, J.J. J.P. Baker, and F.J. Rahel.  1984.  A critical assessment of effects of acidification on fisheries in North America.  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.  B305:5010516. 

Rahel, F.J.  1983.  Population differences in acid tolerance between yellow perch Perca flavescens from naturally acidic and alkaline lakes.  Canadian Journal of Zoology 61:147-152. 

Rahel, F.J. and J.J. Magnuson.  1983.  Low pH and the absence of fish species in naturally acidic lakes: inferences for cultural acidification.  Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 40:3-9. 

Rahel, F.J. 1981.  Selection for zinc tolerance in fish: results from laboratory and wild populations.  Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 110:19-28.

 Books and Book Chapters 

Fisher, W.L. and F.J. Rahel.  Editors.  Geographic Information Systems in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences.  American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, MD.  In preparation with expected publication in 2003.

 Rahel, F.J. and D.A. Jackson.  Watershed-level approaches.  Book chapter In C. Guy and M. Brown, editors.  Analysis and Interpretation of Freshwater Fisheries Data.  American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, MD.   In preparation. 

Rahel, F.J. 2002. Using current biogeographic limits to predict fish distributions following climate change.  Pages 99-110 in N. McGinn , editor. Fisheries in a Changing Climate.  American Fisheries Society Symposium 32:99-110.  Bethesda, MD. 

Rahel, F.J., R.T. Muth, and C.A. Carlson.  1999.  Endangered Species Management.  Chapter 15 in C.C. Kohler and W.A. Hubert, editors.  Inland Fisheries Management in North America.  American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, MD.

 

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