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The Thompson Research Lab currently centers on the effects of abiotic and biotic habitat characteristics on habitat selection of freshwater and estuarine fishes. Fish respond to numerous physical conditions when choosing which habitats to occupy, including temperature, dissolved oxygen, salinity, depth, substrate type, and the presence of vegetation and other cover.
Simultaneously, the presence of prey resources, predators, conspecific individuals, and interspecific competitors all influence the spatial distribution of many fish species.
Of particular interest is how fish value these different habitat characteristics and how the influence of these characteristics on habitat selection changes temporally and spatially across broad areas within a particular aquatic system. |
