Floods, Droughts, and Salmon-supporting vs Cyanobacterial Food Webs in California North Coast Rivers

Mary Power's research interests center on river food webs. She has studied interactions among fish, birds, invertebrates, and algae in temperate and tropical rivers, and has a particular interest in how attributes of species affect food web structure and dynamics, and how strengths of these interactions change under different environmental regimes. Her team has studied, for example, the interplay of trophic dynamics with hydrologic and productivity regimes in northern California rivers, as well as impacts of invading alien species, and linkages between rivers and their watersheds. Much of their current field work takes place in the South Fork Eel River, within the Angelo Coast Range Reserve in Mendocino, CA, one of the University of California Natural Reserve System's 35 research and teaching reserves.