Randal J. Snyder, Ph.D.

Research Interests

Winter mortality of alewives is one of the key destabilizing forces in the interactions between piscivores and alewife in the Great Lakes, and the basic question of why Great Lakes alewives survive some winters and die in others has never been satisfactorily explained. My research examines physiological factors associated with winter mortality of alewives and other Great Lakes fishes, especially the influence of dietary lipids and fatty acids on lower lethal temperatures. Analytical techniques used in my laboratory include extraction and purification of lipids from fish tissues, and fatty acid analysis using gas chromatography.

Courses Taught

BIO 212 - Introduction to Organismal Function and Diversity
BIO 325 - Ichthyology

Recent Research Publications

Snyder, R.J. and H. Dingle. 1990. Effects of freshwater and marine overwintering environments on life histories of threespine sticklebacks: evidence for adaptive variation between anadromous and resident freshwater populations. Oecologia 84: 386-390.

Snyder, R.J. 1991. Migration and life histories of the threespine stickleback: evidence for adaptive variation in growth rate between populations. Env. Biol. Fishes 31: 381-388.

Snyder, R.J., McKeown, B.A., Colbow, K., and R. Brown. 1992. Use of dissolved strontium in scale marking of juvenile salmonids: effects of concentration and exposure time. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 49: 780-782.

Diggins, T.P. and R.J. Snyder. 2003. Three decades of change in the benthic macroinvertebrate community and water quality variables in the Buffalo River Area of Concern. Journal of Great Lakes Research 29(4): 652-663.

Snyder, R.J. and T.M. Hennessey. 2003. Cold tolerance and homeoviscous adaptation in freshwater alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus). Fish Physiology and Biochemistry 29: 117-126.