Project title: Assessing the resilience of southeast Alaskan salmon to a shifting freshwater environment
Personnel Chris Sergeant (PhD Candidate) Funding source(s): Alaska Sea Grant Project description: Salmon are an important economic, subsistence, and cultural resource for people in Alaska. The habitat provided by thousands of watersheds that Pacific salmon depend on for spawning, rearing, and migration is already shifting in response to climate change. In contrast to threatened and endangered populations of salmon in the southern end of their range, we have an unprecedented opportunity to prioritize future management actions for freshwater ecosystems in a region where salmon populations are generally still healthy. It is important to better understand how future changes to streamflow and water temperature patterns might impact salmon growth and survival. In southern coastal Alaska, future climate models predict warming air temperature, increased rainfall, diminishing snowpack, and rapid glacier retreat. If realized, these trends will result in warmer water temperatures, lower summer discharges, and more frequent and severe winter floods. Our team is creating a life-cycle model designed to simulate the cumulative effects of shifting water temperature and flow regimes on freshwater life stages of coho salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch, pink salmon O. gorbuscha, and chum salmon O. keta. Researchers will work with tribal partners to focus research on anadromous streams that are important for subsistence, as well as document local observations as to which streams are being impacted by changing climate conditions. A user-friendly and publicly available model interface will be developed along with community training to expand the use of this model beyond the academic realm and create a broader dialogue about climate change impacts to salmon. Co-Principal Investigators: J. Ryan Bellmore, Pacific Northwest Research Station, US Forest Service Rebecca Bellmore, Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition Davin Holen, Marine Advisory Program, University of Alaska Fairbanks Collaborators: US Geological Survey, Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Institute of Arctic Biology at UAF, College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at UAF, US Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition, Tongass National Forest, Southeast Alaska Fish Habitat Partnership, Chichagof Conservation Council, Sitka Tribe of Alaska, Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, National Park Service Southeast Alaska Inventory and Monitoring Network |
Outreach:
Products: Peer-reviewed publications: Von Biela, V., C. J. Sergeant, M. Carey, Z. Liller, C. Russell, Westley, C. Zimmerman. In press. Premature mortality Alaska’s Pacific Salmon during record heat and drought in 2019. Fisheries. Williamson, E. R., and C. J. Sergeant. 2021. Independent validation of downscaled climate estimates from a coastal Alaska watershed using local historical weather journals. PeerJ 9:e12055. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12055 Sergeant, C. J., Falke, J. A., Bellmore, R. A., Bellmore, J. R., & Crumley, R. L. (2020). A classification of streamflow patterns across the coastal Gulf of Alaska. Water Resources Research, 56, e2019WR026127. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019WR026127 Oral and poster presentations: Sergeant, C. J., J. R. Bellmore, J. A. Falke, and R. A. Bellmore. How will Pacific salmon in Alaska respond to changes in streamflow and water temperature? Poster for Alaska Chapter American Fisheries Society Conference. Remote convening, 23 March 2021. Awarded best student poster Sergeant, C. J., J. A. Falke, J. R. Bellmore, R. A. Bellmore, and R. L. Crumley. Fuzzy streamflow classification of Gulf of Alaska coastal watersheds. Alaska Chapter American Fisheries Society Conference. Sitka, Alaska. 19 March 2019. Awarded Best Student Oral Presentation Sergeant, C. J. and J. A. Falke. Combining runoff modeling and fuzzy streamflow classification to identify transitional flow regimes in Southeast Alaska. Western Division American Fisheries Society Annual Meeting, Anchorage, Alaska, May 23, 2018. Sergeant, C. J. and J. A. Falke. How NASA is contributing to streamflow research in Southeast Alaska. Alaska Chapter American Fisheries Society Student Symposium, Juneau, Alaska, April 6, 2018. Sergeant, C. J., J. A. Falke, R. A. Bellmore, J. R. Bellmore, and D. Holen. Categorizing streamflow patterns to support conservation efforts in Southeast Alaska. Southeast Alaska Habitat Restoration Workshop, March 7, 2018. Sergeant, C. J. and J. A. Falke. Smells like rotting salmon: assessing pressures on freshwater life stages of salmon in Southeast Alaska. UAF College of Fishery and Ocean Sciences Friday seminar, November 17, 2018. |