Climate Adaptation for Data-Limited Inland Fisheries Active

Inland fisheries have tremendous cultural, economic, and subsistence value. However, climate change brings new stresses to land-locked fisheries that raise novel challenges for resource managers. One fundamental challenge in inland fisheries is how to best assess and manage data-limited fisheries when resources are finite and uncertainty is pervasive. To address this challenge, we will use quantitative models to examine whether indicators of fish population status commonly-measured by managers can serve as a “short-cut” to more data- and capacity-intensive approaches. Further, we will work and communicate directly with state and Tribal fisheries managers to better understand the challenges they face when making difficult conservation decisions given climate change. We will share and discuss these findings with fisheries managers and researchers in the upper Midwest in a formal summary workshop. Through the combination of models and management discussions, we will establish whether there are metrics that can be leveraged by managers to give the best information about fish population change and resilience given climate change. Accurately quantifying inland fisheries status and dynamics is critical to understanding how these important ecosystems contribute to local and Indigenous communities and how this  may be impacted by global change.