Prairie Research Institute

My current research focuses on monitoring the response of wadeable stream communities to the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) in the Kaskaskia River Basin. Each field season, I lead a team of field technicians while we sample streams in the Kaskaskia River Basin to collect data on fish, macroinvertebrates, freshwater mussels, water chemistry, and in-stream habitat. 

The Kaskaskia River is ~325mi long river, tributary to the Mississippi River. It is the second largest river system in Illinois (the first being the Illinois River.). The origin is on the western edge of Champaign where it then flows southwest until meeting the Mississippi 40 miles south-east of St. Louis. The main stem contains two impoundments that form Lake Shelbyville and Lake Carlyle. 

The Kaskaskia River Basin is home to a variety of organisms including 112 different species of fish and 42 species of freshwater mussels. 

Illinois Chapter of American Fisheries Society

Hostert, L.E., Pintor, L.M. & Byers, J. (2018). Sex, size and prey caloric value affects diet specialization and consumption of an invasive prey by a native predator Current Zoology.

Pearish, S., Hostert, L., & Bell, A.M. (2016). A Standardized Method For Quantifying Consistent Individual Differences in Schooling Behavior. Journal of Fish Biology, 90 (1), 443-450.

Pearish, S., Hostert, L., Bell, A.M. (2013). Behavioral type - environment correlations in the field: a study of three-spined stickleback. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 67 (5), 765-774.

• M.S., Enivronment and Natural Resources, The Ohio State University, 2014
• B.S., Integrative Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011