Big Muddy Speaker Series presents:

Caroline's research was part of the Comprehensive Sturgeon Project. Her team measured bedload transport rates and mapped out the parts of the river that were moving and parts of the river channel that were stable.  Their research questions for pallid sturgeon recruitment and survival involved determining if the places where pallid sturgeon were currently spawning in the Missouri River was stable enough to support successful incubation of embryos.  When pallid sturgeon spawn they release eggs that adhere to rocky substrates in the river, and it is thought these eggs require these stable substrates for four to eight days before they hatch. Other questions related to bed and sand dune movement involved understanding how sturgeon move upstream through the river during their pre-spawning migrations, and how drifting invertebrates many bottom-dwelling fish feed on move along the bed of the river.

Her team primarily utilized a multibeam echosounder, survey-grade GPS, and an acoustic doppler profiler  to map flow velocity, see river organisms, and examine the sediment at bottom of the river along a 811 mile stretch of the Missouri.