I hope there’s good attendance for today’s zoom @nimbios.bsky.social talk @ 4 PM EST Dr. Brielle Thompson: “Zero to Hero: The Role of Zero Counts in Ecological Monitoring Data” Data quality in informing the emerging invasion of Prussian carp in North America Link: vss.nimbios.org #invasive 🐟

I'm recruiting a Ph.D. student for Fall 2026. Interested in comparative studies and trait evolution in fishes? Send me an email with a CV and research interests. Please take a look at my website (jcorush.github.io ) for more information about my research. #hybridization #minnows #mudskippers

The Sangamon River of Illinois through the seasons. We visited this site every few weeks in 2025 to track changing stream communities with environmental DNA.

New OA study led by Dr. Caitlin Bloomer of U. Illinois: can you predict good habitat for burrowing crayfish even if your model is trained on data from different burrowing crayfish species (doi.org/10.1111/fwb....)? Highly relevant to these hard-to-detect and identify animals.

Riparian buffers help more than just streams and rivers in agricultural landscapes. Lab Masters student Olivia Reves used environmental DNA (eDNA) to quantify the benefit of riparian buffers to terrestrial wildlife in downstate Illinois; open access at doi.org/10.1111/1365...

New invasion note from southern Idaho, where we've rediscovered the non-native red swamp crayfish after a half century without detection (doi.org/10.3391/bir....). Intensive burrowing by red swamp crayfish could be a risk to canals and other irrigation infrastructure.

New faculty position in the University of Illinois Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences for an assistant or associate professor of agroecology: illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree.... Position closes October 31st. Happy to answer questions about the dept / university / town.

UPDATE: The 2025-2026 list of faculty and postdoc positions in ecology and evolutionary biology is out! Be sure to check out this active and helpful community run resources! docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Completed my annual trip to northern Wisconsin, continuing population monitoring of invasive rusty crayfish (Faxonius rusticus) that extends back to the 1970s. Populations remain down, at only ~25% of past peak abundances, with surprising catches of large native snails in our traps.

It was a real pleasure to participate in the Mazama Newt Workshop at Crater Lake hosted by the @oregonzoo.bsky.social and the National Park Service. Discussions focused on a recovery plan for the Mazama newt in light of an exploding invasive signal crayfish. Great to see @ericrlarson.bsky.social!

The RELIX catalogues every plant species in 353 prairie remnants — parts of the native grasslands of the Midwest that were not converted to farmland during colonization.

Our search for invasive crayfish barriers includes more than just dams or irrigation diversions. Because the virile crayfish is intolerant of stream drying (doi.org/10.1086/725318), intermittent reaches could present barriers to upstream spread to permanent streams in the mountains.

Crayfishing.

The manager at this property noted they have problems with the invasive crayfish clogging irrigation infrastructure downstream of the diversion. Economic damages to agriculture from invasive crayfish are well-known on other continents, but I wonder if we've missed an impact in the arid western US.

This irrigation diversion looked promising as an invasive crayfish barrier. The diversion gates didn't appear to be climbable. Water is diverted into a buried pipe with screens to prevent fish entrainment. Concrete retaining walls extend into the riparian zone. Can crayfish get over or around this?

A relief to add a new pilose crayfish site this week. This native species disappeared from the mainstem, low elevation Bear River in Wyoming between 1987 & 2007, replaced by the non-native virile crayfish (peerj.com/articles/5668/). Remnant populations are confined to higher elevation tributaries.

Freshwater invaders pose unique challenges to species distribution (or ecological niche) models used in risk analysis. New in Freshwater Science (doi.org/10.1086/737200), I identify strategies to improve predictions of suitable habitat for emerging, data-poor freshwater invaders using these tools.

The publications collected in this month's LTER Network News really demonstrated the wide range of impactful research the LTER does. Here's the list: mailchi.mp/lternet/lter...

Here's another potential invasive crayfish barrier: a concrete structure extending across a river channel associated with a municipal water supply diversion. Can crayfish get over/around this, or not?

More hints that one of our study sites is a good place to catch crayfish

Here's another potential invasive crayfish barrier: a road crossing above a concrete slab with a drop to a downstream pool. In this case we couldn't assess if the barrier was passable because we found no crayfish up or downstream of the road, likely because the stream is intermittent.

Sometimes we know a crayfish is at a site before we even begin sampling. In this case, the hairy claws of the pilose crayfish had washed up on the shore of a reservoir from molts or mortalities.

This summer, my lab is working to determine whether we can protect the rare, native pilose crayfish in Wyoming from the widely invasive virile crayfish. For example, do irrigation diversions work as barriers excluding virile from pilose habitat? So: what do we think of this prospective barrier?

If I'm proposing to sequence a reference genome assembly and like 250 whole genomes to 10x coverage representative of the geographic scope planned, is that reasonable enough to build a reference panel for imputation? Also how do you do that?

New from my colleagues at the University of Illinois: a dataset of vascular plant species presence for 353 prairie remnants across the Midwestern United States (doi.org/10.3375/2162...)

Map of Ecosystems of North America Completed! @natureserve.bsky.social has released a first-of-its-kind map of ecosystems across the conterminous U.S. & nearby regions w/ a level of detail & consistency not previously available. 🧪 🌎 #GISchat geohub-natureserve.opendata.arcgis.com/maps/Natures...

Another example of the power of environmental DNA (eDNA): a positive eDNA detection led to the rediscovery of a freshwater mussel not found live in Illinois for over a century. New student-led, open access paper in Ecology with @markdavis79.bsky.social at doi.org/10.1002/ecy....

Foundations: please step up and take over the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). This is an absolutely essential scanned archive of all of the old journals and books from the 1500s to about 1920. Has been indispensable for my research. about.biodiversitylibrary.org/call-for-sup...

NOAA proposed budgets would eliminate science and management of marine mammals and sea turtles, firing 311 scientists and cutting the budget by more than $100m. Also a long list of program terminations... See pages 16-20 www.commerce.gov/sites/defaul...

Has anyone made an R package for species distribution models that has a tool for handling islands in a reproducible way?

Some amazing images of a stump from a forest that is estimated to have grown ~8000 yrs ago, from 40 ft below the surface of Lake Superior. Pics by Great Lakes (shipwreck) diver Chris Roxburgh, from FB.

Wyoming deer are heading to the high country, some will travel up to 150 miles. Amazing - and necessary - movements across vast swaths of YOUR public lands. Follow along for weekly updates!

The last stand of Wensleydale's crayfish? A brief, not entirely natural history of White-clawed Crayfish in the River Ure as extinction looms. www.luct.org.uk/blog/2025/3/...

Enjoyed this opportunity to talk about our newly described Pacifastacus crayfishes from western North America yesterday

Not a bad conference location when you can encounter a manatee just down the road from the convention center #2025SFS

Visiting a new place (San Juan, Puerto Rico) for my favorite conference (Society for Freshwater Science) #2025SFS

US conservation science is at serious risk. Join a virtual rally May 22 (12–1pm ET) to defend the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area—vital for tracking wildlife, disease, ecosystems & biodiversity. Featuring Drew Lanham & Kenn Kaufman. It’s free, it’s virtual, it’s vital. www.mobilize.us/nwf/event/79...

BioTime v2 is out!!🚨 - Explore the largest #database of #biodiversity time-series studies in the world. Now with more studies🗄️🔍👩‍💻, more species 🌱🦎🦇🐟🌳🐜🐚🪸🐀, more locations 🌐…just more! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Free to download, free to use! #BioTime #Macroecology #GlobalChange

The definitive work on Chicago area fishes is out, my Sunday column. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

This work originated, 18 years ago, with an NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute (EAPSI) fellowship when I was a PhD student. EAPSI was a small award ($5k) to foster international collaborations, that involved spending 10 weeks in a host country with a mentor. #WithoutNSF #SaveNSF

The result of nearly two decades of work, my coauthors and I have just described two new crayfish species from western North America: introducing the Misfortunate Crayfish and Okanagan Crayfish (doi.org/10.11646/zoo...). More to follow soon, but it should be open access - message if you need a PDF.

It is hard to imagine a world without the USGS Ecosystems Mission, the bird banding lab, the Coop Unit program, etc. but apparently that is what America voted for and what this administration plans to do: wildlife.org/usgs-cuts-wo...

The first paper from my PhD is now out in @aslo.org Limnology and Oceanography Letters! We used nine years of daily temp and chl data from Peter, Paul, and Tuesday Lakes to show that aquatic heatwaves increased surface chlorophyll concentrations during 24 out of 29 events. doi.org/10.1002/lol2...

Sunrise on the Sangamon River, Illinois

Just stumbled across this, another solid paper from the Kelly lab! Great to see work like this on making eDNA interpretation more accessible to end-users besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

New freshwater #crayfish species from northern Tasmania! Engaeus excavator (Richardson 2025). It excavates very deep burrows (>2 m) in clay soils. Called “excavator”, because of its burrowing ability and the requirement to survey with an excavator!

Are crayfish native to upper Columbia River tributaries of the United States? Hamp Kennedy and Susie Adams of the US Forest Service apply primary historical sources and indigenous knowledge to cryptogenic species in a new paper at WIREs Water: wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Hey C-U folks: it's Orange and Blue week at UIUC, and you can support a huge number of great initiatives on campus. I'm partial to the Writers Workshop (payment.giving.illinois.edu/schools/Univ...), but all campaigns here: payment.giving.illinois.edu/orange-and-b....