Biological Station director recognized by peers

The world's largest organization of river ecologists recently recognized a local scientist for 30 years of seminal research.

Jack Stanford, director of the Flathead Lake Biological Station at Yellow Bay, received the 2004 Award of Excellence from the North American Benthological Society. The award honors people who have made outstanding contributions in the field of river ecology.

Stanford's groundbreaking work dates back to 1975 when he was still a graduate student.

At the time, biologists viewed rivers as isolated ecosystems, having little interaction with the adjacent aquifers and floodplains. That changed, however, after Stanford discovered stonefly larvae living in a shallow aquifer more than a kilometer from the nearest river.

Since then, he and others have found more than 80 different aquatic organisms living underground within the Flathead River aquifer.

"The aquifer is loaded with critters that are only found there for much of the year," Stanford said during a Kalispell Chamber of Commerce tour in 2002. "They're most abundant in the spring, when they migrate to the river and emerge as flying adults. These organisms account for 99 percent of the cleansing that takes place within that system: If the aquifer weren't here, that natural process would be missing. The river and aquifer are all part of a living system."

In a previous award presentation, former biological station director Dick Solberg noted that this research highlighted a previously unknown "community of organisms that inhabit near-surface aquifers fed by gravel-bed rivers … redefined river ecology, and demonstrated that surface-groundwater interactions are key to sustaining salmon, trout and other river biota."

Stanford, who earned a doctorate in biology from the University of Utah, has been director of the biological station since 1980.

He followed up his aquifer research with a study of the impacts that took place after non-native mysis shrimp were introduced into Flathead Lake.

The shrimp were expected to be food for the lake's bountiful stock of kokanee salmon. The salmon didn't eat them, though. In fact, the shrimp preferentially fed on the same type of zooplankton that the salmon liked. The added competition caused the fishery to collapse - which in turn affected bald eagle and grizzly bear populations in Glacier National Park, which had regularly gathered to feed on the salmon during the annual spawning run in McDonald Creek.

"This classic study of a 'trophic cascade' caused by the introduction of a non-native species is now an environmental lesson included in many high school biology books," Solberg said.

Stanford has published almost 150 peer-reviewed papers during his career, as well as 20 books and monographs, including "Ecology of Regulated Rivers," a 1979 book that helped establish the basic principles for managing dam operations to minimize the negative impacts on fish and other aquatic resources.

"Ecology is about natural and cultural interactions, not just the natural side," Stanford said during a 2002 interview. "That's what we teach and organize our research around. In the final analysis, we help maintain the quality of life for people - and every time we go out we discover something new. This place is a gold mine, a mother lode of ecology. You can hardly go in the field and not make a discovery."

Reporter Bill Spence may be reached at 758-4459 or by e-mail at bspence@dailyinterlake.com