Bruce VondracekBruce Vondracek

Professor, Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology
Assistant Leader, Minnesota Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
Phone: 612-624-8748
Fax: 612-625-5299
E-mail: bvondrac@umn.edu
Ph.D. University of California, Davis

Fields of Interest

Stream ecology, stream restoration and land use effects on aquatic communities

Courses

  • FW 8465 Fish Habitats and Restoration
  • CBIO 8201 How to Excel in Graduate School

Research

Understanding the mechanisms that influence fish and invertebrate assemblages is important to predict how aquatic systems have responded and will respond to impacts both natural and human induced. Over the past several years, I have examined the interaction across management practices, water quality, and fish and invertebrate assemblages in agricultural and forested settings to assess ecosystem health or biological integrity in relation to land use practices, especially in riparian systems. The aquatic community composition of a stream is largely structured by its proximate physical habitat, which in turn is structured by riparian and watershed conditions at larger spatial scales. I have chosen to work in agricultural and forested settings because nonpoint source pollution associated with agricultural production and timber harvest has been identified as a major threat to water quality in the United States. Concern over the alarming rate of habitat alteration and increasing pressure on aquatic systems has translated into primarily site-level restoration and management strategies, while larger scale processes that may account for many of the observed habitat losses at a site have been unresolved or remain poorly understood. The inability to understand or separate larger scale effects may interfere with conclusions derived from research at smaller scales, more amenable to experimental tests.

Selected Publications

  • Zimmerman, J. K. H. and B. Vondracek. 2007. Brown trout and food web interactions in a Minnesota stream. Freshwater Biology 52:123-136.
  • Petersen, A. and B. Vondracek. 2006. Vegetative buffer strips around sinkholes to improve water quality. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 61:380-390.
  • Zimmerman, J. K. H. and B. Vondracek. 2006. Interactions between slimy sculpin and a native versus a nonnative trout: consequences for growth. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 63:1526-1535.
  • Zimmerman, J. K. H. and B. Vondracek. 2006. Stream enclosure effects on drifting invertebrates and fish growth: do enclosure experiments produce biased results? Journal of the North American Benthological Society 25:453-464.
  • Laudon, M., B. Vondracek, and J. K. H. Zimmerman. 2005. Prey selection by trout in a spring-fed stream: terrestrial versus aquatic invertebrates. Journal of Freshwater Ecology 20:723-733.
  • Vondracek, B., K. L. Blann, C. B. Cox, J. A. Frost Nerbonne, K. G. Mumford, B. A. nerbonne, L. A. Sovell, and J. K. H. Zimmerman. 2005. Land use, spatial scale, and stream systems: lessons from an agricultural region. Environmental Management 36:775-791.