Dissertation Enhancement: Impacts of a migratory detritivorous fish on nitrogen cycling in a tropical stream

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This dissertation enhancement grant supports Bradley Taylor under the direction of Robert O. Hall of the University of Wyoming to study the impacts of a migratory detrivorous fish on nitrogen cycling in a tropical stream in Venezuela. This award supports research that is novel in integrating the impacts of a single fish species on multiple components of the nitrogen cycle. Ecologists are fundamentally interested in the degree to which organisms influence ecosystem structure and function. Although much attention has focused on the relationship between species diversity and ecosystem function for plant taxa, our understanding of how animals influence ecosystem function is still in its infancy.This proposal focuses on migratory fish (Prochilodus mariae) that is a potentially strong interactor in tropical Andean streams and builds on previous work to test whether this single species affects the stream nitrogen cycle, a fundamental component of ecosystem function.