Description

A case study of fish migration is used to understand nutrient cycling, organismal response to environmental cues, and stream ecology and how these can be affected by changes in climate and human activity in landscapes. The resources contain four distinct lessons with each designed for a 50-minute class session and utilizing a flipped classroom structure.  It is designed for undergraduate students in introductory biology and ecology courses.  Students identify the ecological value and impact of inland fish migration to stream ecosystem dynamics.  Activities include reading articles on nutrient contribution to streams by migratory fishes, constructing hypotheses relative to changes in migratory fish populations and stream dynamics, analyzing a dataset on migration patterns, evaluating graphs of data, and describing connections between headwater stream productivity, migratory fishes, nutrient cycling, and climate change.  After completing this case study, students should understand the importance of nutrient delivery by migrating species to an ecosystem, the importance of the timing of migration, and how climate change and human manipulation of the environment can disrupt migration processes.  Developed skills should include reading peer-reviewed literature, working with data sets, constructing graphs, and connecting data and knowledge to an ecological issue.  Lesson 1 introduces fish migration through a common example, Pacific salmon, and discusses the importance of salmon in nutrient transport to headwater streams.  Lesson 2 introduces inland fish migrations in southern Appalachia through published research on nitrogen subsidies, and students connect this research to nutrient dynamics, stream productivity, and climate change.  In Lesson 3, students are presented with data analysis results of a data set collected from a study of migration timing and duration of a fish of conservation concern.  Students construct predictions, analyze graphs, evaluate results, and apply them relative to concepts discussed in previous lessons.  Lesson 4 addresses the timing of migration and phenological mismatches that may occur as a result of climate change, and students consider the effect of shifts in migration timing of fishes to stream dynamics in southern Appalachian streams.

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