My interests include both fish population dynamics and applied fisheries science.  My MSc research involved documenting the life history of an unexploited rainbow trout population and examining the response of catch rates and catchability of this population to introducing fishing.  Following that, I worked as a research assistant on a project to determine the effect of an unscreened diversion channel in southern Alberta on the mortality and abundance of fish in the source river.  I have since worked for a private consulting company examining the effects of various mining projects at different stages of development on various fish populations in Canada's north. 

My PhD research involves examining the effects of interspecific competition on recruitment strength, growth and survival.  This work is based on field research conducted on a series of small lakes in the British Columbia interior plateau.  The results of this work will include 1) a new method for integrating mark-recapture and depletion data to jointly estimate abundance; 2) a new multi-species density-dependent framework for measuring competitive impacts on growth and survival across species; 3) testing this model using data from whole-lake experiments involving stocked rainbow trout in lakes coinhabited by northern pikeminnow; 4) using a data-driven bioenergetics model to estimate variability in growth across years and lakes; and 5) examining a time-series of experimentally overfished lakes to test for the presence of depensation, as hypothesized through the Cultivation-Depensation hypothesis. 

Concurrently, I am involved in various projects with collaborators in Canada, the United States and Europe.  These projects involve a number of studies involving a new bioenergetics model that incorporates field data to estimate consumption and metabolic rates in a Bayesian framework.  This work has been completed on rainbow trout in Alberta, white sturgeon in southern BC and Gulf sturgeon in Florida.  I have also helped pioneer the use of time-lapse wildlife cameras for use in measuring fishing effort on remote lakes.  In addition to using these cameras in interior lakes in BC, I have also used them to monitor the short-term responses of urban anglers to changes in the frequency and intensity of stocking urban lakes.  Finally, I have been developing social-ecological models to examine the ecological effects of European fishing clubs stocking based on angler satisfaction. 

PUBLICATIONS

Peer-reviewed

Walters, C.J., B.T. van Poorten and L.G. Coggins. in review. Bioenergetics and population dynamics of flannelmouth sucker (Catostomus latipinnus) and bluehead sucker (Catostomus discolobus) in Grand Canyon as evidenced from tag recapture observations. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society.

van Poorten, B.T. and C.J. Walters. 2010. Estimation of bioenergetic parameters for rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) using capture-recapture data with comparison to estimates from a laboratory-based model. The Open Fish Science Journal 3:69-79.

Flowers, H.J.,  B.T. van Poorten, J.C. Tetzlaff, W.E. Pine III. 2010. Bioenergetic approach to describing Gulf sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus) growth in two Florida rivers. The Open Fish Science Journal 3:80-86.

van Poorten, B.T. and S.O. McAdam. 2010. Estimating differences in growth and metabolism in two spatially segregated groups of Columbia River white sturgeon using a field-based bioenergetics model. The Open Fish Science Journal 3:132-141.

Post, J.R., B.T. van Poorten, T. Rhodes, P. Askey, A. Paul. 2006. Fish entrainment into irrigation canals: an analytical approach and application to the Bow River, Alberta, Canada. North American Journal of Fisheries Management 26:875-887.

van Poorten, B.T., J.R. Post. 2005. Seasonal fishery dynamics of a previously unexploited rainbow trout population with contrasts to established fisheries.  North American Journal of Fisheries Management 25:329-345.  [2005 Best Paper; North American Journal of Fisheries Management]

Bunt, C.M., B.T. van Poorten, L. Wong. 2001. Denil fishway utilization patterns and passage of several warm water species relative to seasonal, thermal and hydraulic dynamics. Ecology of Freshwater Fish 10:212-219.

Other

van Poorten, B.T. 2010. Effort response of urban anglers to varying stocking frequency and density: findings from the 2009 Fishing in the City program and projections for optimal stocking. Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC, Vancouver.  Report 9.

van Poorten, B.T. 2008.  Book Review: Fisheries Biology, Assessment and Management, 2nd Edition. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 358:197.

van Poorten, B.T. 2008. International travel and collaboration: and important component of learning. FishBytes 14:1.

van Poorten, B.T. 2008. Effort response of urban anglers to varying stocking frequency and density: creel survey summary, parameter estimation and future projections. Prepared for the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC.

Katz, L. B. van Poorten, L. Linton, C.T. Scialfa. 2006. Current and potential uses of technology in the teaching of statistics. Conference Proceedings:2nd IASTED International Conference on Education and Technology. Calgary ,Alberta.

van Poorten, B.T., J.R. Post. 2004. Magnitude and temporal variability of fish loss at the Carseland-Bow River Headworks Canal. Report to Alberta Environment.

Linton, L., L. Katz, B.T. van Poorten, E. Kopp, C.T. Scialfa. 2003. SWIMS II: Statistical teaching software to develop student understanding of fundamental statistical concepts. Technical Document, The University of Calgary, Calgary,Canada.

SCHOLARSHIPS AND AWARDS

2009          Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC Scholarship
2007-08     MITACS/Accelerate BC Internship
2005-08     NSERC Post-Graduate Scholarship
2005-09     UBC Tuition Fee Scholarship
2006          Mercer Patriarche NAJFM Best Paper
2002          University of Calgary Graduate Research Scholarship
2002          Alberta Heritage Graduate Scholarship