2005 Award for Outstanding Student Environmental Research

Dale Splinter is a Ph.D. candidate in the Environmental Science Program.  At the 2005 Graduate Research Symposium, Dale presented the paper “Within-A-Reach Variability of Two Eastern Oklahoma Streams: Baron Fork Creek and the Glover River”.  This research stems from a larger interdisciplinary project that focuses on linking fluvial geomorphic features of eastern Oklahoma streams with black bass population characteristics.  This project is important because it is the first large-scale study in the central U.S. to investigate the influence geomorphology exerts on black bass populations across multiple spatial scales in dissimilar ecosystems.  The study will also be useful to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, which will use the stream morphology information to get a better understanding of the stream classification structure in the eastern portion of the state.  This will help predict characteristics of stream channels when time-consuming and expensive field surveys are not practical.