Colden Baxter

Assistant Professor
Department of Biology
Idaho State University

 

Email: baxtcold@isu.edu
Phone: (208) 282-6098
Curriculum Vitae

 

My research focuses on rivers and streams, but more generally on the ecological linkages between water and land. I study the vectors of aquatic-terrestrial connectivity, their ecological roles, and the consequences of their disruption. These reciprocal linkages are critical to watershed ecosystems, and they couple land and water in their vulnerability to the agents of global environmental change.

A number of my current research projects focus on connections between streams, floodplains, and riparian forests, and the response of these linked systems to both natural and human-caused disturbances. These include 1) a series of experimental and comparative studies investigating the direct and indirect effects of nonnative fish invasions and habitat degradation on reciprocal linkages between stream and riparian forest food webs (being conducted in Japan and the U.S.), 2) investigations of the effects of human land use and flow regulation on river-floodplain linkages and consequences for food web structure and nutrient and carbon cycling in large rivers of the western U.S., 3) ongoing research on the ecological role of groundwater-stream water interactions, including human impacts on this connectivity and potential for floodplain restoration efforts, and 4) study of the effects of a natural disturbance, wildfire, on aquatic-terrestrial food web linkages in wilderness watersheds of central Idaho.

Selected Recent Publications

Baxter, C.V., K.D. Fausch, M. Murakami and P.L. Chapman. 2007. Invading rainbow trout usurp a terrestrial prey subsidy to native charr and alter their behavior, growth, and abundance. Oecologia 153:461-470.

Dahm, C. N., H. M. Valett, C.V. Baxter, and W.W. Woessner. 2006. Hyporheic zones. pp. 119-142 In F. R. Hauer and G. A. Lamberti, editors. Methods in stream ecology. Academic Press, San Diego. 2nd Edition.

Grimm, N.B., C.V. Baxter, C. L. Crenshaw. 2006. Surface-subsurface interactions in streams. pp. 1761-782 In F. R. Hauer and G. A. Lamberti, editors. Methods in stream ecology. Academic Press, San Diego. 2nd Edition.

Torgersen, C.E., C.V. Baxter, H.W. Li, and B.A. McIntosh. 2006. Landscape influences on longitudinal patterns of stream fishes: spatially continuous analysis of fish-habitat relationships. In R. Hughes, L. Wang, and P. Seelbach, editors. Influences of landscapes on stream habitats and biological communities. American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

Baxter, C. V., K. D. Fausch, and W. C. Saunders. 2005. Tangled webs: reciprocal flows of invertebrate prey link streams and riparian zones. Freshwater Biology 50(2):201-220.

Laeser, S.R., C.V. Baxter and K.D. Fausch. 2005. Effects of stream channelization and riparian vegetation loss on web-weaving spiders in northern Japan. Ecological Research. 20:646-651.

Wright, K.K, C.V. Baxter, J. Li. 2005. Restricted hyporheic exchange in an alluvial river system: implications for stream ecology theory and watershed management. Journal of the North American Benthological Society. 24:447-460.

Baxter, C.V., K.D. Fausch, M. Murakami and P.L. Chapman. 2004. Non-native stream fish invasion restructures stream and riparian forest food webs by interrupting reciprocal prey subsidies. Ecology 85: 2656-2663.

Baxter, C.V., F.R. Hauer and W.W. Woessner 2003. Measuring groundwater-stream water exchange: new techniques for installing mini-piezometers and estimating hydraulic conductivity. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 132: 493-502.

Fausch, K.D., C.E. Torgersen, C.V. Baxter, H.W. Li. 2002. Landscapes to riverscapes: bridging the gap between research and conservation of stream fishes. BioScience 52: 483-498.

Baxter, C.V. and F.R. Hauer. 2000. Geomorphology, hyporheic exchange and selection of spawning habitat by bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus). Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 57: 1470-1481.