PNW Aquatic Ecosystems and Climate: PNW Aquatic Ecosystems and Climate: Where are we coming from and where are we Where are we coming from and where are we going?going?

R.C. Francis

N. Mantua

A fishery is composed of three dynamic and interacting elements: an ecosystem, a group of people working (economy), and a system of social control (management).

Arthur McEvoy The Fisherman’s Problem

Salmon and Climate:Salmon and Climate:This is where it allThis is where it allstartedstarted

Alaska and PNWAlaska and PNWsalmon productionsalmon productionare out of phaseare out of phase

What we’ve doneWhat we’ve done

• Large-scale studies of salmon and Pacific climate, identifying the “north-south inverse production pattern” and it’s link to PDO (Francis and Hare 1994; Hare and Francis 1995; Mantua et al 1997; Hare et al. 1999)

• Evidence for climatic links to marine ecosystem regime shifts in the N. Pacific (Hare and Mantua 2000)

• The Northern California Current Ecosystem and Fishery Management (Field 2004 PhD dissertation)

Northern California Current (NCC) Ecosystem Eureka

Columbia

Vancouver

Conception

Monterey

200 mile 200 mile EEZEEZ

NCC

Climate and production are linked

Plots of raw acoustic backscatter (index of hake presence) derived from summer NMFS-DFO acoustic survey

Summer spatial distribution of Pacific hake controlled by climate

SubtropicalPipeline

Vera Agostini Ph.D. dissertation, SAFS, UW

Where are we now compared with the Where are we now compared with the 1960s?1960s?John Field, Ph.D. dissertation, SAFS, UW

Model fitted Model fitted to to assessment, assessment, survey and survey and catch data catch data (1960-2002) (1960-2002) with both the with both the Logerwell Logerwell index index (bottom-up) (bottom-up) and PDO and PDO (top-down) (top-down) forcingforcing

Neg log like:Neg log like:-379-379

no climate: no climate: -352 -352

1960 1980 2000 1960 1980 2000

Integration: Ecosystem Based Fishery Management

The Francis Lab:

V. Agostini, J. Field, J. Little

What we’ve done: Climate and coho What we’ve done: Climate and coho salmonsalmon

• Developed a “lifecycle” model for Oregon coho productivity that includes both stream and ocean influences (~50/50)– Warm years negatively impact

both phases, though it’s the sequence of events that is key

Logerwell et al. 2003, Fish. Oc.; Lawson et al. 2004, CJFAS

What we plan to do

• Climate impacts on California Current coastal pelagics (hake and sardines) (Agostini, in prep)

• Jody Little’s work

• Climate studies for the new NOAA/NWFSC Fisheries “Center of Excellence in Oceans and Human HealthCenter of Excellence in Oceans and Human Health”– Our initial focus is climate impacts on Harmful Algal Bloom

events (a collaboration with the NWFSC) – Our goal is to develop decision-support tools for public health

agencies and the shellfish industry to bridge the current gap between climate information and HAB risk assessments

What we plan to do

• Integrated watershed studies to link climate with land cover, stream flow, coastal oceanography and salmon lifecycle productivity– Past work has assumed stream habitat was

“fixed”; now we plan to investigate land-use and water-use scenarios along with climate scenarios

Pete Lawson and Dan Miller, NOAA Fisheries (Newport Lab)

A landscape-based, dynamic, spatially A landscape-based, dynamic, spatially distributed coho salmon-population distributed coho salmon-population model to explore interactions between model to explore interactions between population dynamics and habitat population dynamics and habitat variability in space and timevariability in space and time

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Space (m)

Time (d)

•Tree growthTree growth•FireFire•LandslidesLandslides•Stream habitatStream habitat

•woodwood•gravelgravel

•PrecipitationPrecipitation

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Total number of returning adultsTotal number of returning adults1000 years of simulation1000 years of simulation

Intrinsic cyclesIntrinsic cycles•100 yr100 yr•500 yr ?500 yr ?

• Tree growthTree growth• stochastic climate stochastic climate (not cyclic)(not cyclic)

Pete Lawson and Dan Miller, NOAA Fisheries (Newport Lab)

Products and outreach

ProductsProducts• Oregon coho marine survival predictions (up to

1 year lead-time with climate forecast information)

• Coming soon: chinook marine survival studies and predictions for harvest planning

OutreachOutreach• Climate-Salmon stakeholder workshops

– annual water workshops since 1999– 1st was Sept 21, 2004 in Portland; 2nd will

be in early 2005 in Seattle

Impacts

• Partnerships with NOAA’s Northwest Fishery Science Center– Pilot study of climate impacts on salmon restoration strategies in

the Snohomish Basin– Proposal for a new NOAA Fisheries initiative to jointly study

climate and freshwater ecosystems that salmon rely on– Request from the Skagit Coop (the Swinomish, Lower Skagit,

and Sauk tribes) to collaborate on a climate impacts study for the Skagit River Basin

• Educating and training a new generation of NOAA fishery oceanographers and stock assessment scientists (e.g. Kerim Aydin, John Field, Vera Agostini, Libby Logerwell, Sarah Gaichas, Laurie Weitkamp, Ian Stewart, Melissa Haltuch, Jason Cope, …)

Integration: watershed studies

• Watershed studies around the life cycle of salmon integrates climate, hydrology, water resources, land use, forest ecology, and salmon recovery planning– pilot study of climate change impacts on salmon

recovery planning for the Snohomish Basin (collaboration between CIG and NOAA’s NWFSC)

– Planning for a more comprehensive study of another river basin (perhaps the Skagit Basin in collaboration with NOAA/NWFSC and tribal Co-Op?)