Assessment of Juvenile Chinook Salmon Rearing Habitat Potential Prior to Species Reintroduction

Zeug, Steven C.; Wiesenfeld, Jesse; Sellheim, Kirsten; Brodsky, Annie; Merz, Joseph E.

doi:10.1002/nafm.10309

Cited by 11 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…2020), although downstream rearing in floodplains, when available, may improve subsequent growth and survival (Zeug et al. 2019), and years of high flow also support greater survival (Zeug et al. 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2016; Zeug et al. 2019). However, the risk of predation is also high and contingent on flow patterns (Lindley et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2010; Zeug et al. 2019). Thus, the success of reintroduction is likely to be sensitive to (1) the exact strategy for when and where to release emigrants and (2) ongoing efforts to restore floodplain habitats that are accessible to the released emigrants.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Capacity of Two Sierra Nevada Rivers for Reintroduction of Anadromous Salmonids: Insights from a High‐Resolution View

et al. 2021

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Historically, anadromous steelhead Oncorhynchus mykiss and spring‐run Chinook Salmon O. tshawytscha used high‐elevation rivers in the Sierra Nevada of California but were extirpated in the 20th century by construction of impassable dams. Plans to reintroduce the fish by opening migratory passage across the dams and reservoirs can only succeed if upstream habitats have the capacity to support viable populations of each species. To estimate capacity in the Tuolumne and Merced rivers of the central Sierra Nevada, we used a high‐resolution approach based on remote sensing and dynamic habitat modeling. Our results suggested that for both species in both systems, sediment grain sizes would support widespread spawning and the water temperatures, depths, and velocities would generate ample capacity for fry and juveniles. However, the unregulated Merced River was consistently too warm for adult Chinook Salmon to hold in the dry season prior to spawning, while the regulated Tuolumne River maintained a cooler, more stable thermal regime with a capacity for thousands of holding adults. In our high‐resolution approach, we also discovered several specific physical controls on life history expression, including thermal constraints on the timing of spawning, hydraulic prompts for downstream migration of fry, divergence of the hydraulic niches of steelhead and Chinook Salmon, and a key but uncertain role for thermal tolerance in adult Chinook Salmon. Our results suggested that steelhead reintroduction could succeed in either system and Chinook Salmon could succeed in the Tuolumne River if passage strategies account for large numbers of migrant fry and juveniles driven downstream by winter storms and snowmelt. The Merced River appeared too warm for adult Chinook Salmon, which raises questions about the current limited understanding of thermal tolerance in holding adults. Our study shows how a high‐resolution approach can provide valuable insights on specific limiting factors that must be addressed for reintroduction to succeed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2016; Zeug et al. 2019). However, the risk of predation is also high and contingent on flow patterns (Lindley et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Capacity of Two Sierra Nevada Rivers for Reintroduction of Anadromous Salmonids: Insights from a High‐Resolution View

et al. 2021

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“…Successful reintroduction and management of salmonids in the Central Valley necessitates an improved understanding of the habitat conditions driving population level success at every life stage (Zeug et al 2019). Previous work investigating smolt outmigration in the San Joaquin River has focused on spatiotemporal patterns in mortality (Buchanan et al 2013(Buchanan et al , 2018Singer et al in prep 1 ), which is an important step towards informing actionable management (Perry et al 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Survival of a threatened salmon is linked to spatial variability in river conditions

Hause

Singer

Buchanan

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Extirpation of the Central Valley spring-run Chinook Salmon ESU (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) from the San Joaquin River is emblematic of salmonid declines across the Pacific Northwest. Habitat restoration and fish reintroduction efforts are ongoing, but recent telemetry studies have revealed low outmigration survival of juveniles to the ocean. Previous investigations have focused on modeling survival relative to river discharge and geographic regions, but have largely overlooked the effects of habitat variability. To evaluate the link between environmental conditions and survival of juvenile spring-run Chinook Salmon, we combined high spatial resolution habitat mapping approaches with acoustic telemetry along a 150 km section of the San Joaquin River during the spring of 2019. While overall outmigration survival was low (5%), our habitat-based classification scheme described variation in survival of acoustic-tagged smolts better than other candidate models based on geography or distance. There were two regional mortality sinks evident along the longitudinal profile of the river, revealing poor survival in areas that shared warmer temperatures but that diverged in chlorophyll-α, fDOM, turbidity and dissolved oxygen levels. These findings demonstrate the value of integrating river habitat classification frameworks to improve our understanding of survival dynamics of imperiled fish populations. Importantly, our data generation and modeling methods can be applied to a wide variety of fish species that transit heterogeneous and diverse habitat types.

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“…As a preliminary step in their reintroduction, Zeug et al. (2019) evaluated the growth of juvenile Chinook Salmon in four locations in the lower San Joaquin River. Their findings suggested that growth and survival within habitat types was dynamic across seasons and likely driven by changing water quality and prey availability.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Natural Recruitment Potential of a Reintroduced Shovelnose Sturgeon Population in the Bighorn River, Wyoming

Hogberg

Skorupski

Hochhalter

2021

N American J Fish Manag

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Shovelnose Sturgeon Scaphirhynchus platorynchus were extirpated from the Bighorn River, Wyoming during the 20th century after the construction of two main‐stem dams and the resulting modifications to fish passage and flow and thermal regimes. The species was reintroduced to the river between 1996 and 2020, but nothing was known about how these fish used the river and whether they could sustain themselves without consistent stocking. Radio telemetry during 2015–2018 identified at least two putative spawning locations 95.6 and 139.5 river kilometers upstream from a reservoir transition zone. Temperature and velocity data suggest that most of the drifting larvae will have insufficient fluvial habitat to complete their drift stage and are likely to enter the Bighorn Lake transition zone. Benthic dissolved oxygen concentrations in the reservoir transition zone were low enough to cause recruitment reduction or failure for drifting larvae that reach this habitat. Future monitoring will determine whether this population persists, but this study highlights the importance of understanding species life history and the causes of extirpations to better predict reintroduction success.

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Assessment of Juvenile Chinook Salmon Rearing Habitat Potential Prior to Species Reintroduction

Cited by 11 publications

References 58 publications

Capacity of Two Sierra Nevada Rivers for Reintroduction of Anadromous Salmonids: Insights from a High‐Resolution View

Capacity of Two Sierra Nevada Rivers for Reintroduction of Anadromous Salmonids: Insights from a High‐Resolution View

Survival of a threatened salmon is linked to spatial variability in river conditions

Natural Recruitment Potential of a Reintroduced Shovelnose Sturgeon Population in the Bighorn River, Wyoming

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