US Fish and Wildlife Service - Science Seminar Series - Modeling Population Persistence Across the Streamscape - March 22 - National LCC Event
| When |
Mar 22, 2012
from 12:00 PM EDT to 01:00 PM EDT |
|---|---|
| Where | Northeast Region Office Large Auditorium/ Online |
| Attendees |
Ben Letcher |
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Accelerating environmental change resulting from population pressures and climate shifts makes reliable forecasts of population response to change now more important than ever. Reliable and useful forecasts identify the magnitude, direction and uncertainty of predicted population response under a variety of future scenarios across a range of habitats. Working with the North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC), we are developing models that can reliably forecast effects of future scenarios on population growth and persistence of stream dwelling salmonids. The major environmental drivers for stream fish are stream temperature and stream flow, which respond in complex ways to the physical forcing factors local geology, land use, water withdrawals, air temperature and precipitation. We have developed stream temperature and flow models that respond to these physical forcing factors and provide the necessary link between physical forcing on the landscape and fish population response. We have also developed detailed demographic models that culminate in an estimate of population growth (can be positive or negative) based on the responses of fish body growth, movement, survival and reproduction to temperature and flow. With these linked, integrated models we can forecast population response to changes in land use (provided by the terrestrial North Atlantic LCC project), climate change (acting through air temperature and precipitation) and other disturbances (including water withdrawal or mitigation strategies). Importantly, these linked models provide forecasts of the magnitude, direction and uncertainty of population growth. These forecasts will be useful for both evaluation of alternate management strategies and creation of maps of susceptible and resilient watersheds. In phase I of this project, we are applying these models to selected watersheds within the North Atlantic LCC. We will describe the models and provide preliminary results.
