Fish

This project identified priority areas in the Columbia Plateau Ecoregion to focus on for riverine and riparian habitat conservation. The project’s products are tailored towards the Arid Lands Initiative (ALI) conservation goals and objectives and provide the foundation for adaptation to a changing climate. We adopted a “zoned” approach to identifying focal areas, connectivity management...

Changes in the Earth’s climate are expected to impact freshwater habitats around the world by altering water temperatures, water levels, and streamflow. These changes will have consequences for inland fish – those found within lakes, rivers, streams, canals, reservoirs, and other landlocked waters – which are important for food, commerce, and recreation around the world. According to the...

Salmonids (a family of fish that includes salmon, trout, and char) are a keystone species for both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, and can be an early warning indicator of ecosystem health. Salmonids also have strong societal values and contribute enormously to regional economies and Native American cultures. Today, many native salmonid populations are small, highly fragmented, and...

For thousands of years, Pacific lamprey and Pacific eulachon have been important traditional foods for Native American tribes of the Columbia River Basin and coastal areas of Oregon and Washington. These fish have large ranges – spending part of their lives in the ocean and part in freshwater streams – and they require specific environmental conditions to survive, migrate, and reproduce...

Coral reefs are sometimes called “rainforests of the sea” because of their immense biological diversity and economic value. While coral reefs are sensitive to changes in their environment such as altered temperature or pollution, some reefs are more resilient, or able to recover from disturbance more quickly, than others. The overarching objective of this project was to gather...

Human impacts occurring throughout the DOI Northeast Climate Science Center, including urbanization, agriculture, and dams, have multiple effects on streams in the region which support economically valuable stream fishes. Changes in climate are expected to lead to additional impacts in stream habitats and fish assemblages in multiple ways, including changing stream water temperatures. To...

The eulachon is a small fish that is both highly nutritious and culturally significant to the Chilkat and Chilkoot peoples of the Tlingit Nation in Southeast Alaska, for whom it is a traditional food. Tribal members are increasingly concerned about how climate change might stress the health and abundance of eulachon populations, which are already perceived as being low. In order to...

The conditions of coral reefs in the Hawaiian Islands are predicted to decline significantly from climate change over the next 100 years. To better prepare for the impacts of climate change on Hawaiian reefs, the research team uses a system of models to simulate ocean waves and circulation, rainfall and storm run-off, and coral reef community dynamics through the year 2100. These models...

Drought poses a major threat to New Mexico’s state fish, the Rio Grande cutthroat trout. This southernmost subspecies of cutthroat trout, found only in New Mexico and Colorado, has already been restricted to an estimated 12% of its former range. Now climate change, in the form of lower winter snowpack and reduced precipitation, challenges its long-term persistence. This trout tends to...