Tuesday, 19th May Society for Freshwater Science 2026 Annual Meeting

The 5km Fun Run is a long-standing tradition at the SFS Annual Meeting and all are welcome to participate - whether it’s your 100th run or first run! The 5km route is a loop following Riverfront Park and Centennial paved trails.

Start/Finish Point: River-side grassy area behind the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Spokane

Cost: USD $40/runner and includes a piece of Fun Run swag, bibs, and access to water stations along the route. 

What to bring: smiles, runners, appropriate clothing and sunscreen or a hat (if the weather is nice)

2026 SRC Undergraduate Student Travel Award Recipients
2025 Student Presentation Award Recipients
Plenary Speakers (Caj Mathesson & Laura Laumatia)

• Marking 25 Years Since Idaho v. U.S.: Reflections and Impact on the Health of Coeur d’Alene Lake - Laura Laumatia and Caj Mathesson

Additional Session Chairs: Deb Finn, John Matthews & David Lytle

• River frequencies for river health - David A Lytle
• Anticipating ecological responses to extreme climatic events in rivers - Jonathan D Tonkin
• From fundamental ecology, to restoration experimentation, and on onward to policy-relevant restoration.   - Margaret Palmer
• Trait-based ecology and LeRoy’s quest for generality over contingency  - Julian D Olden
• LeRoy’s mentorship ethos: Read widely, write persuasively, go to NABS - Deb Finn

• From Land to Lake: A Continuous Flow-Path Framework for Land-Use Impacts on Water Quality - Mikaela Sako
•  Investigating Seasonal Changes in Microplastic Pollution in the Davidson River, NC - Ariel Podlogar
• Temporal and spatial changes in nutrient concentrations in the War Eagle Creek Watershed, Arkansas   - Brandy N Everett
• Growing climate is more important than induced defenses for predicting chemistry and consumption of riparian tree leaves - Claire W Asmussen
• Landscape Watershed Condition and Drought Vulnerability Assessment in the Western U.S. - Jeffrey Falke

• Potential Fate, Transport, and Impact of Enhanced Rock Weathering Products in Freshwater Ecosystems - Emily Bernhardt
• Seasonality modulates urban influences on dissolved organic carbon bioavailability - Mary Munt
• Tide-driven soil respiration: Impacts of Tidally-Induced Water Table Fluctuations on Soil Respiration in Riparian Zones - Yinuo Yang
• Examining influences of submerged macrophytes on fluvial CH₄ and CO₂ drivers and concentrations. - Jaden Nguyen
• Enhanced greenhouse gas emissions with floating and emergent plants in wetlands - Nathan O Earl
• Facilitation of aquatic bryophytes by baldcypress extends oxic periods and offsets carbon emissions in blackwater swamps - Andrew S Mehring

Additional Session Chairs: Nellie Little & Mahima Quazi

• Do agricultural conservation practices promote biogeochemical resilience in a tile-drained and intensively fertilized landscape? - Lindsey M. Rasnake
• Effects of biochar-modified poultry litter on water quality - Mahima Quazi
• Age of the two-stage: time since floodplain restoration mediates the hydrologic signature of storms in an agricultural watershed - Caroline Anscombe
• Long-term nutrient impacts of the afforestation of agricultural lands reveal a lag in dissolved phosphorus reduction - Kathleen Cutting
• Impacts of a forested state park and weather on stream and reservoir nutrient concentrations in a Midwestern agricultural watershed - Bartosz Grudzinski
• Migratory Shorebird Stopover Habitat Management Enhances Wetland Biogeochemical Function in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Agroecosystem - Jason Taylor

Additional Session Chairs: Carla Atkinson

• Embracing the zoogeochemical framework in freshwaters to understand and predict the ecosystem-level consequences of conservation (Joint talk with Taylor Michael) - Jonathan W Lopez
• Embracing the zoogeochemical framework in freshwaters to understand and predict the ecosystem-level consequences of conservation (Joint Talk with Jonathan Lopez) - Taylor C Michael
• A 44-year study of amphibian-mediated zoogeochemical connectivity in Carolina bays - Irene Sanchez
• From strategy to structure: decomposition dynamics of unionid mussel shells  - Lauren M Morris
• Mussel-mediated nutrient fluxes in a coastal plains river - Madison P. Kuczek
• Environmental conditions induce growth rate and stoichiometric trait plasticity in captivity reared freshwater mussels - Garrett Hopper

• Catching what we miss: what eDNA metabarcoding adds to endangered shiner monitoring in the Brazos River watershed - Zacchaeus G. Compson
• Toward Regional Thermal Tolerance Indices for the Pacific Northwest: Evaluating the Weighted Averaging Optimum Framework for Benthic Macroinvertebrates using State-wide Biomonitoring Datasets. - Garrison S Ferone
• Targeting biodiversity and standardization with a modified aquatic macroinvertebrate sampling method  - Jacob Lott
• STUDIES ON THE MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS OF THE KARATOA RIVER AT SHAHJADPUR AND ITS FISHERIES   - Bijoy Kumar Ghosh

Additional Session Chairs: Rachel Stubbington & Adam Price

• Naturalness shapes dry-phase refuges and invertebrate community recovery in headwater streams - Rachel Stubbington
• Spatial and temporal variation in occupancy of stream-associated amphibians. - Tiffany Garcia
• Macroinvertebrate diversity in climate-stressed ponds: when will communities recover from drying? - Rebecca Best
• High Sodium Lifestyle: The physiology and habitat preferences of a rare diving beetle endemic to an extreme environment. - Audrey Lindsteadt
• Beaver restoration as a nature-based solution for sustaining perennial streamflow during drought in Sierra Nevada headwater streams - Chloe Faehndrich
• Integrated hydrological and biological monitoring reveal ecological patterns in intermittent streams - Daren M Carlisle

• Modeling changes in temporal beta diversity across seasonal and non-seasonal temperature regimes. - Kurt E Anderson
• Assessing Bergamann's rulein freshwater macroinvertebrates using NEON data - Reece Bollinger
• Changes in macroinvertebrate communities in national parks of the southwestern United States across a ten-year period: patterns and challenges - Rocío J. Guzmán Ojeda
• Aquatic breeding in a dry land: determining drivers of amphibian water site use and reproductive success in the Sonoran Desert - Sadie Roth
• Unpredictable waters: lentic community responses to experimental hydroperiod variability - Courtney Hendrickson
• Predicting biodiversity patterns and the importance of connectivity, stochasticity, and environmental variation in river ecosystems  - Adrian Ortiz-Velez

• Connecting in-stream toxicity testing with community-level responses in an impacted stream - Louise Stevenson
• Ecosystem Processes in the Age of Antibiotics - Michael Strickland
• Cobalt as an Emerging Contaminant: Ecosystem-Scale Responses to Metal Mixtures in Freshwater Mesocosms - Travis S Schmidt
• Contaminant spiraling as a unifying conceptual model for predicting fate and effects of contaminants on aquatic-terrestrial meta-ecosystems - David Walters
• Evolving metal-related risks and sources in an ecosystem impacted by a century of mining - Madison J Foster

• Wastewater Regulatory Challenges and Strategies in Austin, Texas  - Kaela Champlin
• Nutrient makeover: Effects of a wastewater treatment plant upgrade on a delta ecosystem - Kyle Leathers
• Coupled watershed and stream modeling to evaluate wastewater management scenarios in an urban stream - Angel Santiago
• Effective treatment of wastewater for microbial removal - Hemant Sagar
• Modeling Surface and Subsurface Transport of Land-Applied Treated Wastewater in Urban Watersheds - Harshita Mahaseth
• Wet wipes as potential carriers of pathogens and antibiotic resistance genes in urban streams - David Calvo-Mora

Andreas (Andy) Leidolf has served as SFS Executive Director in a part-time role since 2018. Join him for this brown bag lunch to get answers to "everything you've always wanted to know about SFS but were afraid to ask

Additional Session Chairs: Julian Olden, John Matthews & David Lytle

• ‘River, keep on rolling. Carry my soul to the sea.’ - David Merritt
• From streamlines to storylines: A Poff Lab-er's journey from science to freshwater filmmaking - Jeremy Monroe
• ENVIRONMENTAL FLOWS AND THE LAW - David Allan
• LeRoy Poff’s Role in Defining the Form, Function, and Future of Flow Regimes - Kris Taniguchi-Quan
• Looking back and looking forward: river conservation in a human-dominated world - N LeRoy Poff

• Vertebrate Biodiversity via eDNA at the air-water interface - Pedro Brandao Dias F Pinto
• Aquatic-terrestrial linkages and biodiversity spillover in forest streams - Francis J Burdon
• Dynamic variation in the impact of Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) on aquatic-terrestrial insect fluxes - Elizabeth M Parkinson
• Wood, Water, and Wildlife: Avalanche-Delivered Wood Accumulations Support Elevated Fish Abundance and Riparian Bird Species Richness - Anna Reside
• Stressor-response relationships linking human activities to Pacific salmon in freshwater ecosystems - Marta Ulaski

• Delivery of carbon gases by preferential groundwater discharge across a river network - Ashley M Helton
• Spatio-temporal changes in the physicochemical characteristics of Lake Atitlán Basin - Natalia Vargas López
• Modeling Nitrate Attenuation in Tidal Riparian Zones Using a 1D Boussinesq-Based Monte Carlo Framework - Chuanhui Gu
• Sediment conditions may support benthic cyanobacteria bloom formation in an oligotrophic river reach - John Buster
• Storm-driven nitrate loading varies with land use along a headwater stream continuum - Joseph Baldus

Additional Session Chairs: Kathleen Cutting & Karessa De La Paz

• Tradeoffs between nutrient retention and greenhouse gas emissions in managed agricultural wetlands - Amanda K Suchy
• Nitrous oxide production and emissions in tailwater recovery systems in Eastern Arkansas over a year (2025). - Nellie I Little
• Nitrous oxide emissions from tailwater recovery systems - Auldyn L. Faulk
• Rainfall and temporal controls on inorganic nutrients in a salinization mesocosm experiment - Samuel AT Dias

Additional Session Chair: Carla Atkinson

• Stronger together? Exploring synergistic potential in mussel-macroinvertebrate nutrient dynamics - Rowan Scott
• Direct emissions and bioturbation from the invasive Asian clams (Corbicula spp.) drive CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O cycling in streams - Nguyen Tien Anh Quach
• Scaling up: How fish ontogeny and evolution shape ecosystem nutrient flux - Amina Mohamed
• Whole-stream isotope additions reveal light and predator controls on nitrogen fluxes in Tropical stream food webs - Frank C Akamagwuna
• Spatiotemporal trends in nutrients in two biodiverse rivers - Annie Blalock

• The assessment of riverine wetland conditions, macroinvertebrate assemblages, and physical habitat conditions of streams on Santa Rosa Island, Channel Islands National Park. - Daniel Pickard
• Stream macroinvertebrate functional organization and biological integrity across headwaters in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. - Sergio A. Sabat-Bonilla
• Diatoms.org: training, transforming, transcending - Sarah Spaulding
• Community body-size distributions inform ecological integrity in aquatic systems - Brent Murry
• Skewed Power Laws: Biased Data Bends λ and How to Bend it Back - Justin Pomeranz

Additional Session Chairs: Shannon Speir & Adam Price

• Insect colonization alters resistant taxa population dynamics but not community composition in ephemeral wetland mesocosms - Christopher F Frazier
•  Evaluating the effects of warming on the resistance and resilience of stream communities to drought - Allison Sutcliffe
• Food Webs in Flow: Spatiotemporal Variation in Diversity and Food Web Structure in an Intermittent River - Jered Davenport
• Drying out diversity: functional, but not taxonomic, shifts in aquatic insects under ephemeral conditions - Hayden Hays
• Parallel patterns or divergent responses? Investigating species-genetic diversity correlations among macroinvertebrates in streams across the southern United States - Meryl C Mims

• Aquatic insect declines in protected tropical rainforest streams, Costa Rica - Alonso Ramirez
• Spring-fed tributaries function as seasonal refuges for juvenile masu salmon - Masaru Sakai
• Trialling Whakaweku for Invertebrate Sampling in Tasmanian Streams - Caitlin Silberberg
• Can thermal performance curves predict fish distribution across a thermally diverse watershed? - Benjamin Zdasiuk
• Quantifying the effects of interannual variation in flow and temperature on the abundance of fishes in two biodiverse southern Appalachian rivers - Phillip Bumpers

• Plastic pre-production pellets, “nurdles”, in rivers: Sampling methods, distribution, and implications for policy - Timothy J Hoellein
• Trash Talk: River flow dynamics and bridges impact anthropogenic litter patterns    - Dana C Garcia
• Hydraulic controls on microplastic transport and deposition across riverine flow habitats - Enahoro Kennedy Owowenu
• Distribution and point-source contributions of pre-production plastic pellets in an urban river  - Olivia Schaul
• Macroinvertebrates and microplastics: understudied ecological communities in Appalachian freshwater springs - Benjamin E Jackson
• Influence of land use and hydrology on plastic pollution in the riparian zone of a Mediterranean river - Eugenia Martí

• Urban stream reflections: What can we learn from long-term waterway management and research? - Brian Murphy
• Developing an assessment framework for nature-based recreation, an overlooked ecosystem service in urban settings that depends on ecological health - Raphael D Mazor
• Cool tools for warming streams: A new thermal stressor index helps managers in King County, WA interpret trends in macroinvertebrate communities - Kate Macneale
• A framework for assessing how urban stormwater systems shape water quality in streams in King County, Washington - Malia Scott
• The Puget Sound Stream Benthos database: A powerful regional tool and local application in Bellingham, Washington. - Mateo Scoggins

SFS Business Meeting
Endowment Awards
Discussion/Q&A Session with Sally Entrekin & Natalie Griffiths

Are you looking for your next position? About to graduate with your terminal degree? The SFS Early Career Committee invites all SFS 2026 attendees to participate in a free evening mixer and panel event focused on recruitment and professional development. Join us for a peer-to-peer networking event followed by panels on job searching, application materials, and different pathways for finding your next science home. Light hors d’oeuvres and non-alcoholic beverages will be provided.

Panel 1 – Job Search

• Pedro Brandão Dias
• Jonny Behrens
• Alison Zachritz
• Cat McClure

This event is free to attend, but spaces are limited, please ensure you RSVP.

Are you looking for your next position? About to graduate with your terminal degree? The SFS Early Career Committee invites all SFS 2026 attendees to participate in a free evening mixer and panel event focused on recruitment and professional development. Join us for a peer-to-peer networking event followed by panels on job searching, application materials, and different pathways for finding your next science home. Light hors d’oeuvres and non-alcoholic beverages will be provided.

Panel 2 – Discussion with Early Career Professionals

• Jackie Gerson
• Kathleen Cutting
• Jess Brandt
• Allison Myers-Pigg

This event is free to attend, but spaces are limited, please ensure you RSVP.

Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory alums (former and current students, scientists, etc.) and scientists interested in working at the lab are invited to an informal mixer to share stories about their experiences at RMBL or talk about how to get science started there. Please join us!

The Scholar Team for Research, Engagement and Advancing Minority voices is hosting a science communication symposium to improve communication of freshwater science to the general public. We are seeking Spokanite SFS members or SFS members who conduct their research in Spokane to share their science with their community.

The event is “science fair/poster style” with resources provided to presenters to ensure their material is engaging and accessible for a diverse, non-science audience, along with funding to print posters for presenters as needed. Presenters can also bring props such as microscopes, field equipment, etc to show attendees. Light refreshments will be provided to all attendees, presenters, and volunteers.

We are thankful to the SFS Long Range Planning Committee for funding this event. 

If you are interested in presenting please complete the expression of interest form here - https://forms.gle/wowbfakXkQPpwKTv7

Cost: Free to attend, all welcome

Join Freshwaters Illustrated, Rios to Rivers, and the Tribal Water Media Fellowship program at Fort Lewis College for an evening of water storytelling through film and media. This event is free and open to all.

For more information about the Tribal Water Media Fellowship program, click here.

For more information about Freshwaters Illustrated, click here.