Kate’s research explores the trophic dynamics of aquatic food webs and life history diversity of Endangered Species Act-listed Coho Salmon. Her thesis project focuses on how diet affects growth and overwinter survival of juvenile Coho in Humboldt Bay tributaries. Humboldt Bay is the second largest coastal estuary in California and fifth largest along the conterminous Pacific Coast. During European colonization, tide gates and levees were installed in the lower elevation portions of Humboldt Bay’s tributary watersheds to control flooding and convert floodplains to agricultural land. This altered or destroyed side channel slough, tidal wetland, and floodplain habitats important to estuarine-rearing life histories of Coho Salmon. Recent habitat restoration efforts in the Humboldt Bay watershed have focused on the reconstruction or simulation of these habitats. Kate's research will examine diet, growth, and overwinter survival of Coho Salmon rearing in these restoration projects. Results of this study will be applicable to future estuarine and off-channel habitat restoration for salmonids.