Increasing hydrologic variability threatens depleted anadromous fish populations

Predicting effects of climate change on species and ecosystems depend on understanding responses to shifts in means (such as trends in global temperatures), but also shifts in climate variability. To evaluate potential responses of anadromous fish populations to an increasingly variable environment,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Global change biology 2015-07, Vol.21 (7), p.2500-2509
Main Authors: Ward, Eric J, Anderson, Joseph H, Beechie, Tim J, Pess, George R, Ford, Michael J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
adverse effects
anadromous fish
Animal populations
climate
Climate change
ecosystems
endangered species
environmental variability
Fish
freshwater
hydrologic variability
Hydrology
Oncorhynchus tshawytscha
population
population growth
prediction
rivers
salmon
temperature
winter
winter storms
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Summary:Predicting effects of climate change on species and ecosystems depend on understanding responses to shifts in means (such as trends in global temperatures), but also shifts in climate variability. To evaluate potential responses of anadromous fish populations to an increasingly variable environment, we performed a hierarchical analysis of 21 Chinook salmon populations from the Pacific Northwest, examining support for changes in river flows and flow variability on population growth. More than half of the rivers analyzed have already experienced significant increases in flow variability over the last 60 years, and this study shows that this increase in variability in freshwater flows has a more negative effect than any other climate signal included in our model. Climate change models predict that this region will experience warmer winters and more variable flows, which may limit the ability of these populations to recover.
ISSN:1354-1013
1365-2486
DOI:10.1111/gcb.12847