Project period: 09 09 2024 - 08 31 2027 project title: increasing the adaptive capacity of cold-water fishes through stream barrier removalsabstract summary: salmon and trout play important roles in…

This federal Cooperative Agreement award from the U.S. Geological Survey's Cooperative Research Units (CFDA 15.812) program provides $299,994 to Oregon State University from September 2024 to August 2027. The award will fund the development of an R Shiny application to help natural resource managers assess how removing stream barriers could increase cold-water fish growth potential under current and future climate conditions. Additionally, the project will create a population dynamics simulation model to evaluate how maintaining migratory fish life histories can improve persistence of at-risk salmonid populations in climate refugia. The research team includes end-user partners from Trout Unlimited, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management, who will utilize the project outputs to guide tens of millions of dollars in barrier removal efforts over the next decade.

Project period: 09 09 2024 - 08 31 2027 project title: increasing the adaptive capacity of cold-water fishes through stream barrier removalsabstract summary: salmon and trout play important roles in ecosystems, and they support subsistence, recreational, and commercial fisheries in the pacific northwest. As climate warming reduces the habitat available for these cold-water fishes, a key challenge for managers is to soften impacts on populations by increasing their adaptive capacity, which is their ability to cope with change. The most tangible and promising way to increase adaptive capacity is by maintaining large-bodied migratory individuals. This is a win-win for the public because migratory fish are typically the ones that support fisheries. Barriers to fish movement (e.g., culverts and dams) have extirpated 30% of salmon populations in the pacific northwest and leave many remaining trout populations in habitats that will support only small-bodied residents. Recent legislation will provide billions of dollars for removing barriers to fish movement, providing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to increase adaptive capacity. However, managers have limited tools for anticipating the benefits from barrier removals, which hinders their ability to strategically allocate resources. This project will translate cutting edge science into an easily accessible web tool that helps managers envision how moving or eliminating barriers changes the capacity for watersheds to grow migratory fish (based on water temperature). The web tool will explore how reconnecting habitats with different seasonal patterns of water temperature affects the total amount of growth that is possible for fish. To broadly inform conservation and to understand the long-term value of restoring connectivity, the research team will also model how maintaining migratory individuals affects the persistence of populations in the face of warming. Research team includes end users at trout unlimited, the US forest service and the bureau of land management, who will use the science products to guide tens of millions of dollars in barrier removals in the coming decade, ensuring this work has the highest return on investment possible. Activities to be performed - recipient will use recent spatio-temporal models of water temperature and existing bioenergetic models to quantify growth potential across river networks. For each 2-KM reach on the network, this will generate a daily growth potential through the year. Recipient will develop an r shiny application that enables users to remove or move barriers and calculate changes in the cumulative growth potential expressed across the accessible river network, under current or future climate conditions. Project partners are also end users, and will harness this application to prioritize tens of millions of dollars in barrier removal projects.recipient will develop a population dynamics simulation, informed by bioenergetic modeling, that assesses how maintaining large-bodied migratory life histories affects the potential for at-risk salmonids to persist in place. A dominant conservation planning and management paradigm prioritizes resident life-histories in cold tributaries. Maintaining access to downstream habitat with high growth potential should reduce extinction risk by increasing body size and fecundity and by distributing individuals across space during disturbances such as wildfire. Project model will test these hypotheses. Deliverables and expected outcomes -1) r shiny application that to evaluate how barrier removals affect growth POTENTIAL2)simulation model that explores the contribution of migratory life histories to population viability in climate refugia intended beneficiaries -trout unlimited, bureau of land management, US forest service subrecipient activities, if known or specified at the time of award -trout unlimited will lead the development of the r shiny application