Darren Ward, Ph.D. | Fisheries Biology

I do research in basic and applied freshwater ecology. My research focuses on conservation ecology of Pacific salmon, with specific interests in life history diversity, mechanisms of population regulation, predator/prey interactions, and using mercury and other elemental tracers to study fish bioenergetics. Most of my research has a strong field work component because that's the fun part of fisheries biology!

Education

B.S. in Fisheries, 1998, Utah State University

M.S. in Fisheries, 2002, University of Minnesota

Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 2007, Dartmouth College

Courses Taught

FISH 320 Limnology

FISH 434 Ecology of Freshwater Fish

FISH 476 Ecology of Running Waters

Former Graduate Students

Name	Thesis	Graduation Year
Christopher O'Keefe	Do beaver dam analogues act as passage barriers to juvenile coho salmon and juvenile steelhead trout?	2021
Max Ramos	Recolonization potential for coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) in tributaries to the Klamath River after dam removal	2020
Madison Halloran	Coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) dispersal and life history variations among Humboldt Bay watersheds	2020
Grace Ghrist	Freshwater and marine survival of coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) as a function of juvenile life history	2019
Gabriel Scheer	A population model for coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) in Freshwater Creek: Evaluating the effects of life history variation and habitat restoration	2017
Justin Alvarez	Abundance, growth and predation by non-native brown trout in the Trinity River, CA	2017
Molly Gorman	Juvenile survival and adult return as a function of freshwater rearing life history for Coho Salmon in the Klamath River basin	2016
Michelle Krall	The influence of habitat characteristics on abundance and growth of juvenile Coho Salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch in constructed habitats in the middle Klamath River basin	2016
Sean Cochran	Marine survival of Coho Salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) from small coastal watersheds in Northern California	2015
Shari Witmore	Seasonal growth retention and movement of juvenile coho salmon in natural and constructed habitats of the mid-Klamath River	2014

Publications

Alvarez, J.S.* and D.M. Ward. 2019. Predation on wild and hatchery salmon by non-native brown trout (Salmo trutta) in the Trinity River, California. Ecology of Freshwater fish 28:573-585.
Cochran, S.M.* and D.M. Ward. 2019. Comparing abundance-based and tag-based estimates of coho salmon marine survival. Fisheries Management and Ecology 26:165-171.
Roddam, M.* and D.M. Ward. 2017. Life history differences of juvenile Chinook salmon across rearing locations in the Shasta River, California. Ecology of Freshwater Fish 26:150-159
Vazquez, R.*, D.M. Ward, and A. Sepulveda. 2016. Does water chemistry limit the distribution of New Zealand mud snails in Redwood National Park? Biological Invasions 18:1523-1531.
Rebenack, J.J.*, S. Ricker, C. Anderson, M. Wallace, and D.M. Ward. 2015. Early emigration of juvenile coho salmon: implications for population monitoring. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 144:163-172.
Dijkstra, J.A., K.L. Buckman, D.M. Ward, D.W. Evans, M. Dionne, and C.Y. Chen. 2013. Experimental and natural warming elevates mercury concentrations in estuarine fish. PLOS ONE 8:e58401
Ward, D.M., K.H. Nislow, and C.L. Folt. 2012. Do low-mercury terrestrial resources subsidize low-mercury growth of stream fish? PLOS ONE 7: e49582.
Ward, D. M., K. H. Nislow, and C. L. Folt 2011. Seasonal shift in the effects of predators on juvenile Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) energetics. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 68:2080-2089.
Ward, D. M. and Hvidsten, N. A. 2010. Predation: Compensation and Context Dependence, in Atlantic Salmon Ecology (eds Ø. Aas, S. Einum, A. Klemetsen and J. Skurdal), Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK.
DOI: 10.1002/9781444327755.ch8