Saturday Symposium to Examine Health of Mountain Streams

Trout in a brook

Environmental scientists will meet Saturday at James Madison University to follow up on a similiar meeting, held at U.Va. in 2004, to discuss the health of mountain streams.

A one-day symposium on the conditions of mountain streams in the Appalachian region will bring a diverse group of speakers from academia, state and federal agencies, and nonprofit groups to James Madison University on Sept. 21. Scientists at the University of Virginia and JMU organized the event.

The theme is “Continuing Challenges for Critical Ecosystems.” The goal is to highlight emerging research and management practices that provide a better understanding of the challenges facing mountain streams in the region. The symposium is sponsored by the 4-VA program and JMU’s biology department and is a follow-up to a symposium held at U.Va. nine years ago.

Registration is free, but seating is limited to a remote viewing site in a satellite room. For information, click here; a live-stream video of the full symposium will be available here.

The symposium’s organizers are Rick Webb, a senior scientist in environmental sciences in U.Va.’s College of Arts & Sciences; JMU biologist Christine May; and JMU integrated science and technology professor Tom Benzing.

The following is the symposium schedule:

Mountain Stream Symposium II
Sept. 21, JMU Bioscience Building, room 1007

• 8:45 a.m. – introductions

•9 a.m. – Todd Scanlon, U.Va. environmental sciences professor, “Virginia’s Mountain Streams: What Thirty Years of Research tells us about Future Impacts of Acid Rain and Climate Change”

• 9:30 a.m. – Andy Dolloff, U.S. Forest Service/Virginia Tech, “More is Better, But Still Not Enough: Insights From 20 Years of Monitoring Brook Trout and American Eels in Blue Ridge Mountain Streams”

• 10 a.m. – Mark Hudy, U.S. Geological Survey, “The Importance of Scale: Assessing and Predicting Brook Trout Status in its Southern Native Range”

• 10:30-11 a.m. – Morning break and poster session

• 11 a.m. – Than Hitt, U.S. Geological Survey, “Spatial Structure of Stream Thermal Sensitivity Affects Climate Change Forecasts for Brook Trout”

• 11:30 a.m. – Jeb Wofford, National Park Service, “Aquatic Ecosystem Health in Shenandoah National Park; A Summary Based Upon Benthic Macroinvertebrate Monitoring Results (1990-present)”

• Noon – Dawn Kirk, U.S. Forest Service, “Aquatic Restoration on a National Forest”

• 12:30-1:30 p.m. – Lunch break and poster session

• 1:30 p.m. – Paul Angermeier, Virginia Tech, “Perspectives on Stream Fish Movement: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Tests”

• 2 p.m. – Robert Humston, Washington & Lee University, “Stocking Brook Trout in Virginia’s Headwater Reservoirs: Dispersal and Direct Genetic Impacts on Native Stream Populations”

• 2:30 p.m. – Steve Reeser, Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, “A History of VDGIF’s Wild Trout Management Program”

• 3 p.m. – Jason Lynch, Environmental Protection Agency, “The Acid Rain Program: What it Means to Mountain Streams in Virginia”

• 3:30-4 p.m. – Afternoon break and poster session

• 4 p.m. – Dana Quillen, Center for Coldwaters Restoration, “The Center for Coldwaters Restoration, Waynesboro Virginia”

• 4:15 – Joe Keiper, Virginia Museum of Natural History, “Water Resources as a Central Theme in a Proposed Natural History Interpretive Center in Waynesboro, Virginia

• 4:30 – Tom Benzing, JMU, “Stream Temperature Studies on South River in Augusta County and Waynesboro for Targeting Trout Restoration Efforts”

• 4:45 – Gary Berti, Trout Unlimited, topic TBA

• 5 p.m. – Panel discussion

• 5:30 p.m. – Adjourn

Media Contact

Fariss Samarrai

Office of University Communications