Welcome to the blog everyone! This blog, West Virginia Trout Tales, will highlight the research and adventures of graduate students at West Virginia University working in Dr. Kyle Hartman's lab on a long-term stream research project. We will be posting interesting discoveries, photos, stories, research results, publications, and community outreach activities related to this project. But first, let's get to know the project itself with a little bit of basic background info.
The project came about due to a graduate student's masters thesis work at WVU in the early 2000s. This student selected 25 headwater streams throughout the mountainous eastern part of West Virginia to sample both fish communities and habitat characteristics. These streams have been continuously sampled for both habitat and fish since 2003 to present day and have been the setting for multiple graduate theses and dissertations over this time period. With these long-term data, many interesting questions about the ecology of these dynamic and beautiful systems may be asked and answered in the years to come!
