Assessing the Impotance of Cutthroat Trout to River Otters in Yellowstone Lake

Biology, Status, and Management of the Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout

Yellowstone cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus clarkii bouvieri were historically distributed in the Yellowstone River drainage (Montana and Wyoming) and the Snake River drainage (Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and probably Washington). Individual populations evolved distinct life history characteristics in response to the diverse environments in which they were isolated after the last glaciation. Ant...

Introduced Lake Trout Produced a Four-Level Trophic Cascade in Yellowstone Lake

—Introduction of lake trout Salvelinus namaycush into a system can add a trophic level, potentially affecting organisms at lower trophic levels. Similar to many lakes and reservoirs in the western United States, lake trout were introduced into Yellowstone Lake, Wyoming. Previous studies showed that lake trout reduced the population and altered the size structure of native Yellowstone cutthroat ...

High-altitude diving in river otters: coping with combined hypoxic stresses.

River otters (Lontra canadensis) are highly active, semi-aquatic mammals indigenous to a range of elevations and represent an appropriate model for assessing the physiological responses to diving at altitude. In this study, we performed blood gas analyses and compared blood chemistry of river otters from a high-elevation (2357 m) population at Yellowstone Lake with a sea-level population along ...

How Many River Otters Inhabit Yellowstone Lake? An Assessment with Fecal and Hair DNA Analyses

Diagnostic single nucleotide polymorphisms for identifying westslope cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki lewisi), Yellowstone cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii bouvieri) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss).

We describe 12 diagnostic single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) assays for use in species identification among rainbow and cutthroat trout: five of these loci have alleles unique to rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), three unique to westslope cutthroat trout (O. clarkii lewisi) and four unique to Yellowstone cutthroat trout (O. clarkii bouvieri). These diagnostic assays were identified using a...