Nearly all ecological and evolutionary processes are influenced by movement, including individual fitness,
               population and community dynamics, and ecosystem processes. Further, movement is one of the key ways
               in which animals respond to environmental heterogeneity, including human-induced rapid environmental
               change, making movement a key issue in conservation efforts. An individual's physiology interacts with external
               environmental conditions to determine how it will move, and what threats or opportunities it will encounter.

Major Research Themes

​Movement patterns and external context

• Guidance of migrating Chinook Salmon with LED lights (Hansen et al. 2019)
• Sevengill Shark movement in San Francisco Bay, and relationship to local currents (McInturf et al. 2019)
  
• Adult Green Sturgeon migration timing, habitat use, and response to seasonal diversion dam (Steel et al. 2018 J App Ich)
  
• Juvenile Chinook Salmon movement and survival during seaward migration (Steel et al. 2014, Steel et al. 2018 USACE report)
  

Physiology and movement

• Ecologically relevant impacts of pesticide exposure on sturgeon juveniles (active project)
  
• Juvenile sturgeon guidance in laboratory flume (active project)
  
• Endurance swimming capacity and physiology of juvenile sturgeon (active project)
  
• Sturgeon trade-offs between foraging opportunity and predation risk, under nutritional stress (Steel et al. 2019), and across ontogeny (active project)