Examining the morphological impacts of artificial damming in steelhead trout
Jack Tseng, Professor
Integrative Biology
Applications for Spring 2025 are closed for this project.
Human actions and infrastructure are impacting biodiversity in real time, rapidly changing environments, modifying ecological interactions, and introducing new selection pressures that living organisms have never before encountered. To develop effective, targeted conservation strategies, we need to understand how anthropogenic actions, infrastructure, and management decisions influence evolution. One of the biggest anthropogenic influences upon freshwater environments are human-made dams. While dams are a ubiquitous part of human infrastructure, they also negatively impact stream ecology to a large degree. For migrating salmonids (salmon & trout), dams impose a physical barrier, limiting access to valuable upstream breeding habitats, and diminishing gene flow between above-dam and below-dam populations. We are studying fish populations impacted by damming to reveal how this human process influences their evolutionary trajectory.
While it is well known that extensive damming has led to decreases in native salmonid populations, a gap in knowledge lies when considering the cascading effects this anthropogenic influence has on morphology. In this study, we will conduct a morphological comparison to assess body shape changes in steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) across a dam barrier. By investigating functional morphology, we can gain a better understanding of how human-made systems are impacting long-term evolution of this migratory fish, developing better strategies to promote steelhead conservation.
Role: URAP students will gain experience with a wide variety of geometric morphometric techniques. They will learn the principles of CT scanning, use open access software to generate models from CT data, collect data using 3D models, and participate in data analysis if time permits. Through this experience students will become familiar with CT technology and its varied applications in biological science research, and have hands-on experience with scientific data collection, analysis, and interpretation.
Qualifications: Candidates should have an interest in evolutionary biology, morphology/anatomy, ichthyology (fishes), conservation biology, or a related field. Proficiency in all Microsoft Office and Google Suite applications is required. Prior experience with landmarking, 3D modeling, segmentation, and/or any other morphological methods is desirable but not required. Any class level and major will be considered. For Spring 2025, we are looking for students with multiple consecutive (2+) hours of availability. Please reach out to Jackie Galvez (jacquelyngalvez@berkeley.edu) if you have any questions!
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Jackie Galvez, Ph.D. candidate
Hours: 6-8 hrs
Biological & Health Sciences