Session Title

Session Description:The Salish Sea Marine Survival Project: Understanding salmon survival

Session Description

SPECIES 6: The Salish Sea Marine Survival Project: Understanding salmon survival

Over the past 30‐40 years, marine survival of Chinook, coho, and steelhead populations in the Salish Sea has declined precipitously, and total abundance today remains well below 1970s‐1980s abundances. Historically, our understanding of what drives salmon and steelhead survival in saltwater has been limited. In response to this need, Long Live the Kings (U.S.) and the Pacific Salmon Foundation (Canada) developed a comprehensive transboundary approach to determine the primary factors affecting salmon and steelhead survival in the Salish Sea.

The Salish Sea Marine Survival Project (SSMSP; www.marinesurvivalproject.org) brings together multidisciplinary international expertise from over 60 U.S. and Canadian agencies, Tribes and First Nations, academia, and non-profit organizations. The project’s integrated, ecosystem‐based research framework incorporates coordinated data collection and standardization, information sharing, and international collaboration to better understand population dynamics within the Salish Sea ecosystem, improve forecasting and management, and aid recovery. The research phase of the Project is 2014‐2018; it culminates with a focus on converting research results into conclusions and management actions.

The presentations within this session built towards a better understanding of salmon survival in the Salish Sea, from individual fish tracking to end-to-end ecosystem models. Presenters discussed population-specific contaminant impacts and effluent exposure through outmigration, declining eelgrass condition and increasing shoreline structure in the Strait of Georgia, commonalities in survival patterns across chinook salmon, coho salmon, and steelhead, and effects of migration routes, pathogen loads, and density of conspecifics at marine entry on survival. An end-to-end ecosystem model of Puget Sound is currently being created to simulate trophic dynamics, fisheries, nutrient dynamics, microbial cycles, and habitat. This model is intended to evaluate the strength of evidence for hypotheses around declining chinook, coho, and steelhead survival, and can facilitate development of ecosystem-based management strategies.

Keywords

Contaminant impacts on salmon, Effluent exposure

Conference Track

SSE11: Species and Food Webs

Conference Name

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (2018: Seattle, Wash.)

Document Type

Event

SSEC Identifier

SSE11: Session Description

Start Date

5-4-2018 12:00 AM

End Date

5-4-2018 12:00 AM

Type of Presentation

Oral

Genre/Form

conference proceedings; presentations (communicative events)

Contributing Repository

Digital content made available by University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.

Subjects – Topical (LCSH)

Chinook salmon--Migration--Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.); Steelhead (Fish)--Migration--Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.); Coho salmon--Migration--Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.); Survival analysis (Biometry); Fish population--Statistical methods

Geographic Coverage

Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.)

Rights

This resource is displayed for educational purposes only and may be subject to U.S. and international copyright laws. For more information about rights or obtaining copies of this resource, please contact University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225-9103, USA (360-650-7534; heritage.resources@wwu.edu) and refer to the collection name and identifier. Any materials cited must be attributed to the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference Records, University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.

Type

Text

Language

English

Format

application/pdf

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Apr 5th, 12:00 AM Apr 5th, 12:00 AM

The Salish Sea Marine Survival Project: Understanding salmon survival