Vulnerability of Fraser River sockeye salmon to climate change: A life cycle perspective using expert judgments

Fraser River sockeye salmon have been the basis for a major commercial fishery shared by Canada and the United States, and an important cultural foundation for many aboriginal groups; they are also of huge ecological significance throughout the Fraser Basin. The potential for altered aquatic habitat and temperature regimes due to climate change is an important concern for Fraser River sockeye salmon. This paper characterizes the vulnerability of Fraser River sockeye salmon to future climate change using an approach that is novel on three counts. First, previous efforts to assess the vulnerability of salmon to climate change have largely focused on only part of the life cycle, whereas we consider climate vulnerability at all stages in the life cycle. Second, we use the available scientific literature to provide a basis for structuring and eliciting judgments from fisheries science and management experts who research and manage these systems. Third, we consider prospects for mitigating the effects of climate change on sockeye salmon. Tests showed that participants’ judgments differentiated in statistically significant ways among questions that varied in terms of life stages, spawning regions and climate scenarios. The consensus among participants was that Fraser River sockeye are most vulnerable to climate change during the egg and returning adult stages of the life cycle. A high temperature scenario was seen as imposing the greatest risk on sockeye stocks, particularly those that migrate to the upper reaches of the Fraser River system and spawn earlier in the summer. The inability to alter water temperature and the highly constrained nature of sockeye management, with competing gear types and sequential fisheries over a long distance, suggest the potential to mitigate adverse effects is limited. Fraser River sockeye already demonstrate a great deal of adaptive capacity in utilizing heterogeneous habitats in different river sub-basins. This adaptability points to the potential value of policies to make stocks more resilient to uncertain futures.     

Statistical and Spatial Analysis of Land Cover Impact on Selected Metro Vancouver, British Columbia Watersheds

The Greater Vancouver area has undergone significant land use and land cover (LULC) change over the past several decades, often adversely affecting stream health and water quality, particularly in those areas that have undergone the most urbanization. In this study 30 years of historical LULC and water quality data were examined using GIS and statistical analysis to better understand these impacts and to help build a broader understanding of cause and effect relationships of changing LULC, especially since urbanization is increasingly occurring within sensitive watersheds at greater distances from the City of Vancouver. Urban, agriculture, and disturbed LULC data from 1976, 1986, and 2000 were examined within a number of watersheds and related to historical water quality data sampled from streams during similar time frames. Additional higher resolution 2006 LULC data from a smaller number of watersheds were then examined and compared to stream health data to investigate the sensitivity of LULC data resolution on monitoring watershed impact. While LULC impact can be clearly seen at both high and lower resolutions, issues of ambiguous land cover and land use designations can potentially affect the magnitude of the relationship.     

A Method to Consider Whether Dams Mitigate Climate Change Effects on Stream Temperatures

This article provides a method for examining mesoscale water quality objectives downstream of dams with anticipated climate change using a multimodel approach. Coldwater habitat for species such as trout and salmon has been reduced by water regulation, dam building, and land use change that alter stream temperatures. Climate change is an additional threat. Changing hydroclimatic conditions will likely impact water temperatures below dams and affect downstream ecology. We model reservoir thermal dynamics and release operations (assuming that operations remain unchanged through time) of hypothetical reservoirs of different sizes, elevations, and latitudes with climate‐forced inflow hydrologies to examine the potential to manage water temperatures for coldwater habitat. All models are one dimensional and operate on a weekly timestep. Results are presented as water temperature change from the historical time period and indicate that reservoirs release water that is cooler than upstream conditions, although the absolute temperatures of reaches below dams warm with climate change. Stream temperatures are sensitive to changes in reservoir volume, elevation, and latitude. Our approach is presented as a proof of concept study to evaluate reservoir regulation effects on stream temperatures and coldwater habitat with climate change.     

Association of urinary or blood heavy metals and mortality from all causes,cardiovascular disease,and cancer in the general population: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Amounting epidemiological evidence has shown detrimental effects of heavy metals on a wide range of diseases. However, the effect of heavy metal...     

Urban stormwater runoff pollutant loadings: GIS land use classification vs. sample-based predictions

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Cities are growing worldwide with an increase in stormwater quantity and decrease in quality, negatively impacting receiving water bodies. The...     

Mechanistic basis of individual mortality in Pacific salmon during spawning migrations

Reproductive-based migration is a challenging period for many animals, but particularly for Pacific salmonids, which must navigate from the high seas to freshwater natal streams. For the first time, we attempt to answer the question as to why some migratory adult Pacific salmon die en route to spawning grounds. Summer-run sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) were used as a model, and the migration behavior of 301 fish was followed by intercepting them in the ocean about 215 km from the mouth of the Fraser River, British Columbia, Canada, and implanting a gastric radio transmitter. Before release, telemetered fish were also bio-sampled, which included drawing a blood sample, collecting a gill biopsy, and quantifying energetic status with a microwave energy meter. We tested the predictions that the fish that died prematurely would be characterized by low energy reserves, advanced reproductive development, elevated indicators of stress, and low osmoregulatory preparedness compared with fish that completed their river migration. Just over half (52.3%) of the sockeye tagged were subsequently detected in the Fraser River. Salmon that failed to enter the river had exhibited indicators of stress (e.g., elevated plasma lactate, glucose, and cortisol). Contrary to our prediction, fish that failed to enter the river tended to have higher gross somatic energy and be larger at the time of sampling in the ocean than fish that successfully entered the river. Of the fish that were detected in the river (i.e., 134 fish excluding fishery removals), 9.7% did not migrate beyond the lower reaches (approximately 250 km from ocean), and a further 14.2% reached the upper reaches but failed to reach natal sub-watersheds, whereas the remainder (76.1%) reached natal sub-watersheds. Of these, fish unsuccessful in the lower reaches tended to have a high plasma osmolality in the ocean, whereas fish failing in the upper reaches had lower levels of reproductive hormones in the ocean.     

Building resilience and adaptation to manage Arctic change

Unprecedented global changes caused by human actions challenge society's ability to sustain the desirable features of our planet. This requires proactive management of change to foster both resilience (sustaining those attributes that are important to society in the face of change) and adaptation (developing new socioecological configurations that function effectively under new conditions). The Arctic may be one of the last remaining opportunities to plan for change in a spatially extensive region where many of the ancestral ecological and social processes and feedbacks are still intact. If the feasibility of this strategy can be demonstrated in the Arctic, our improved understanding of the dynamics of change can be applied to regions with greater human modification. Conditions may now be ideal to implement policies to manage Arctic change because recent studies provide the essential scientific understanding, appropriate international institutions are in place, and Arctic nations have the wealth to institute necessary changes, if they choose to do so.     

An exposure assessment for selected pharmaceuticals within a watershed in Southern Ontario

Recent studies from a number of countries have shown that measurable concentrations of both human and veterinary pharmaceuticals can be found in a variety of environmental matrices such as surface and ground water, soils, and sediments. Few data are available that characterize the sources, exposure and effects of pharmaceuticals in the environment and there is clearly a need to define these parameters within a Canadian context. We present in this paper the first report in southern Ontario, Canada on the geographic and temporal distribution of pharmaceuticals detected within seven tributaries receiving primarily agricultural inputs in a typical watershed. Of the 28 pharmaceuticals surveyed, 14 were detected in the streams sampled (n=125). Temporal trends in concentration for five frequently detected pharmaceuticals show pulses occurring between May and November of 2003 at similar but varying times over the seasons, depending on the pharmaceuticals, flow rate, and precipitation. Fluctuations in concentration of ions indicative of agricultural run off, such as nitrate and phosphate, were not found to be useful predictors of changes in pharmaceutical concentration (P>0.4), however a significant correlation between dissolved organic carbon and monensin and carbamazepine concentrations were observed (P<0.013). Exposure profiles illustrating concentration distributions for three of the more prevalent pharmaceuticals detected, including lincomycin, monensin and carbamazepine, showed a log normal distribution, useful for calculating centiles of environmental concentrations. While distributions of estimated total potency of pharmaceuticals detected in the surface waters suggested small risks of environmental effects of mixtures to daphnia, green algae, Lemna gibba, and fish, the significance of non-target effects and impacts due to chronic low level exposures to chemical mixtures remains unclear.