I am urgently seeking a field assistant for a project working on desert fishes in the Southwest, primarily in 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 May 30-June 1 and likely end by the beginning of August. All living expenses will be covered (food, housing), and transportation up to $800 but there is no stipend available. The work will involve living at a remote field site for most of the summer, and tasks will include: electrofishing, tagging fish with PIT tags and tracking them, 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. This study will investigate the influence of two related, but functionally different fish species, Catostomus insignis and Catostomus clarki, on ecosystem processes such as primary production and organic matter generation. The project will track fish habitat use to understand if effects on ecosystem processes are heterogeneous within the stream, and use this information to inform in-situ exclosure experiments. 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] or 607.244.4075 with a CV and at least 2 references.
