I am seeking a field assistant for a project working on desert fishes in the Southwest, primarily in Arizona and western New Mexico. The ideal candidate will have experience with standard techniques in stream ecology and with living and working under rugged outdoor conditions, but more important is enthusiasm, creativity and flexibility, and a strong work ethic.
The work will start in May (start date is negotiable) and likely end by the beginning of August. All living and travel expenses will be covered (food, housing, transportation), but there is no stipend available. The work will involve camping for most of the summer, and tasks will include: electrofishing, tagging fish with PIT tags, measuring primary production/algal standing stocks/benthic organic matter, and building in-stream enclosures/exclosures. Lots of long days and sometimes tedious work, but I can guarantee it will be in a beautiful place, with cool fish, and likely the opportunity to do a small side project. An abstract for the project: A species with a strong influence in one ecological community may have a limited influence under other environmental conditions, but the factors determining the strength of species interactions are often unclear. Fish control important characteristics of many stream systems. Native fishes of the American southwest are ideal for testing the influence of abiotic and biotic factors on species interactions because single species are broadly distributed throughout a heterogeneous landscape of hot deserts and cool mountains. Native fishes are declining in these streams; thus, understanding the effects of their loss is vital. To assess how environmental context affects species interactions in Southwestern streams, this study will investigate the influence of two related, but functionally different fish species, Catostomus insignis and Catostomus clarki, on ecosystem processes along an elevational gradient. This gradient will enable examination of the effects of these species on critical stream processes such as primary production and organic matter generation under conditions ranging from warm water, low desert streams to cool water, high mountain streams. Using large-scale enclosures controlling fish identity in a single stream combined with small-scale fish exclosures in multiple streams, this study will estimate the effects of fish on ecosystem properties, and assess how environmental context modifies them. The project also will track fish habitat use to understand if effects on ecosystem processes are heterogeneous within the stream. Understanding the factors modifying species importance in an ecosystem will provide information particularly important for management agencies, which must develop sustainable practices to use and protect these ecological resources. Please contact Mike Booth at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a CV and at least 2 references.
