What are the habitat requirements of stream fishes

What are the habitat requirements of stream fishes?

Thomas G. Coon

Professor, Fisheries and Wildlife

Stream Fishery Ecology

My research has encompassed several aspects of fishery ecology, but most of my work has focused on the habitat requirements of stream fishes. My graduate students and I have worked on a variety of stream systems, from small headwaters to complex large floodplain rivers and at the levels of individual fish, fish populations and fish assemblages. The role of habitat variability in the dynamics of fish populations has been especially important in my work.

Some of my current research at Michigan State includes separate projects to develop habitat-driven population models for smallmouth bass and rock bass populations in southern Michigan streams and for brook trout and steelhead trout populations in northern Michigan streams; studies on the spawning and rearing habitat requirements of salmonids in marginal habitats of southwestern Michigan; and studies to develop and evaluate stream habitat restoration in Michigan streams.

Selected Publications

Coon, T.G. 1987. Responses of benthic riffle fishes to variation in stream discharge and temperature. In Community and Evolutionary Ecology of North American Stream Fishes, W.J. Matthews and D.C. Heins (eds.), pp. 77-85. Univ. Oklahoma Press.

Dames, H.R., T.G. Coon and J.W. Robinson. 1989. Movements of channel and flathead catfish between the Missouri River and a tributary, Perche Creek. Trans. Amer. Fish. Soc. 118:670-679.

Vogt, G.F., Jr. and T.G. Coon. 1990. A comparison of the foraging behavior of two darter (Etheostoma) species. Copeia 1990:41-49.

Brown, D.J. and T.G. Coon. 1990. Abundance and assemblage structure of fish larvae in the lower Missouri River and its tributaries. Trans. Amer. Fish. Soc. 123.

Bovee, K.D., T.J. Newcomb and T.G. Coon. 1994. Relations between habitat variability and population dynamics of bass in the Huron River, Michigan. U.S. National Biological Survey Biological Report 94(22). U.S. National Biological Survey, Washington, D.C.