Subventions et des contributions :

Subvention ou bourse octroyée s'appliquant à plus d'un exercice financier. (2017-2018 à 2022-2023)

Rivers are connected, from headwaters to estuaries, by flows of water and migrations of fish. My long-term goal is to unite landscape perspectives of rivers with aquatic ecology to build a holistic understanding of the dynamics of aquatic systems.

Over the next five years, I will focus on one key aspect of the dynamics of river systems—their potential resilience to climate change. My research program will examine how key processes contribute to climate resilience of salmon watersheds, quantify the limits of this resilience, and illuminate potential management actions. My short-term objectives span three scales:
1. Population : Quantify the mechanisms and limits of population resilience.
2. River : Assess climate vulnerability of salmon meta-populations within large rivers.
3. Continental : Illuminate past and future climate-shifts in salmon across regions and species.

At the population level, I will examine how life-cycle complexity of a migratory fish provides buffering capacity to populations as they cope with climate regime changes. This project will link individual-level traits to population dynamics through analyses of long-term data and contemporary tagging data from the best-studied steelhead population in the world.

At the large river scale, I will examine the controls and limits of climate resilience of large rivers and their salmon meta-populations. Based on field temperature monitoring programs in two large BC rivers, we will build spatial network models to predict river temperatures, and then couple those with salmon meta-population models. I predict that climate vulnerability of migratory salmon will be set by downstream temperature bottlenecks, all influenced by forestry practices, portfolio effects, landscape features (e.g., lakes), as well as river configuration.

At the continental scale, I will examine large-scale changes in salmon range and outmigration timing to gain a forward-looking perspective on salmon futures. From BC to Alaska, we will predict how glacial retreat will redistribute salmon productivity. To quantify which salmon may become winners or losers due to climate-induced phenological mismatches, we will compile and analyze long-term data on salmon smolt outmigration timing and their zooplankton prey.

Collectively, the proposed body of work will address one of the most pressing applied questions of our era: how can we best enable natural systems to cope with climate change? At a fundamental level, this body of research will transform understanding of river systems as whole-systems and generate actionable science towards resilience. The discoveries will benefit Canada by informing the management of economically and culturally important salmon. Further, the proposed research program will provide training for eight HQP of various levels to gain expertise in emerging analytical tools and field methods to tackle real-world scientific challenges.