My current research interests include continued long-term field studies of fish communities in Oklahoma and Arkansas, and analyses of more than 30 short-term or long-term data sets from 40 years of field work in  the region.  I also continue to actively study ecology of stream fishes in the region, with ongoing projects on the fishes of the Tar Creek superfund site and fishes of the Blue River.  I am working with colleagues to describe one or more distinct species in the upper Blue River and to compare them to similar fish in nearby drainages.  In retirement, I do not now take any graduate students.  My focus is now on collaboration with Dr. Edie Marsh-Matthews, and a few other reliable colleagues.

• Matthews, W. J., and E. Marsh-Matthews. 2017. Stream Fish Community Dynamics: A Critical Synthesis.  Johns Hopkins University Press. Baltimore, MD.
• Matthews, W. J.  1998.  Patterns in Freshwater Fish Ecology. Chapman and Hall, New York, NY.  757 pages. Second printing, May 1998, Kluwer Academic Press.
• Matthews, W. J. and D. C. Heins.  Editors.  1987.  Community and Evolutionary Ecology of North American Stream Fishes.  University of Oklahoma Press.  310 pp.
• Zbinden, Z. D. and W. J. Matthews. 2017.  Beta diversity of stream fish assemblages: partitioning variation between spatial and environmental factors.  Freshwater Biology DOI: 10.1111/fwb.12960 (May 2017).
• Matthews, W. J. and E. Marsh-Matthews.  2016. Dynamics of an upland stream fish community over forty years: trajectories and support for the loose equilibrium concept.  Ecology 97:706-719.
• Matthews, W. J., T. Turner, and M. Osborne  (2016) Breakdown of a Hybrid Swarm between Two Darters (Percidae), Etheostoma radiosum and Etheostoma spectabile, with Loss of One Parental Species.  Copeia 104:873-878.
• Matthews, W. J. 2015. Basic biology, good field notes, and synthesizing across your career. Copeia 103:495-501.
• Matthews, W. J. and E. Marsh-Matthews.  2015. Comparison of historical and recent fish distribution patterns in Oklahoma and Western Arkansas.  Copeia 103:170-180.
• Matthews, W. J., E. Marsh-Matthews, G. L. Adams and S. R. Adams.  2014. Two catastrophic floods: similarities and differences in effects on an Ozark stream fish community.  Copeia 2014: 682-693.
• Ross, S. T. and W. J. Matthews.  2014. Evolution and ecology of North American freshwater fish assemblages.  Chapter 1, Pages 1-49 in: North American Freshwater Fishes, Volume 1. Johns Hopkins Press
• Matthews, W. J., E. Marsh-Matthews, R. C. Cashner, and F. Gelwick.  2013.  Disturbance and trajectory of change in a stream fish community over four decades.  Oecologia 173:955-969, with supplementary materials.