Otoliths are structures located in the inner ear cavity of all teleost fish and serve as a balance organ and also aid in hearing. They have been used traditionally to obtain information about the taxon, age and size of fishes. This is very important because age, growth rate, and mortality rate are three of the most influential life history characteristics controlling the productivity of fish po...

1. Gravid females of some.North American freshwater mussel species (Bivalvia: Unionidae) display highly modified mantle margins and other reproductive structures which mimic small fish, terrestrial insects, or aquatic macro-invertebrates. We report the responses of fish to these lures, based on the results of laboratory encounters between the following pairs of displaying mussels and fishes: La...

Populations of reef fish are widely believed to be limited by availability of larval recruits, not by density dependent processes operating during and after settlement of young stages in the reef environment. Our research explores and challenges this thinking. We are utilizing field observations and experiments to determine what factors affect spatial distribution, abundance, and population dyn...

A large diversity of fishes struggle early in life to forage on zooplankton while under the threat of predation. Some species, such as zebrafish (Danio rerio), acquire an ability to forage in the dark during growth as larvae, but it is unclear how this is achieved. We investigated the functional basis of this foraging by video-recording larval and juvenile zebrafish as they preyed on zooplankto...