L22AS00169 Attach-ment C.docx

L22AS00169 BLM Alaska Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Management Attachment C Other Program Priorities

· Combating climate change and habitat loss impacts to aquatic resources.

· Understanding how climate change projections may affect watershed processes within WSRs and key attributes to monitor for change detection.

· Determining acceptable levels of hydrologic and ecological change given BLM management objectives. For example:

· Continue to characterize heat stress tolerances in freshwater fishes to understand resiliency of species to changing climactic conditions. Identify if current conditions are evoking heat stress responses in various populations via direct sampling and analysis of heat shock proteins.

· Use landscape genetics to document gene flow and population structure of fish species to help (potentially) identify locally adapted populations and evaluate the degree of genetic connectivity within and among drainages to assess ecological resiliency and help identify potential barriers to migration that may be impacting genetic diversity.

· Use archived otolith data to understand spatial and temporal trends and environmental drivers of fish growth in an effort to predict potential changes in growth influenced by climate conditions.

· Advancing inventory, assessment, and monitoring activities and tools. For example:

· Identification and refinement of remote sensing tools to aid in the quantification of aquatic resource condition/trend on non-wadeable river systems consistent with BLM’s National Aquatic Monitoring Framework and AIM Strategy.

· Intensely sample and compare temporal and spatial heterogeneity of fish communities in lakes using traditional and novel approaches (e.g., fishing gear vs. environmental DNA) to inform optimal sampling design for inventory and monitoring assessments as well as compliance.

· Refinement of remote sensing tools using priority watersheds as the proving grounds. Moving beyond conventional sampling designs and into riverscape type designs.