Year-to-year fluctuations in salmon run size cause difficulty for managers and fishermen trying to anticipate salmon returns and associated expenditures/income in the next fishing season. Recent evidence from the successful Bristol Bay sockeye salmon fishery has shown that “biocomplexity” contributes to regional run stability via the portfolio effect. In this fishery, regional runs are composed of multiple local populations with diverse life-history and physical characteristics adapted to their specific spawning localities. Because of this high trait diversity over different spawning locations, each local population responds individually to annual variation in climate, weather, and local feeding/growing conditions. Due to this diversity in response to changing conditions, in any one year some stocks respond favorably while other stocks diminish, but the overall run size remains relatively stable. Because sockeye salmon are becoming more important to fisheries in the AYK region, our study seeks to determine whether the biocomplexity that contributes to run stability in Bristol Bay is also present in Kuskokwim drainage sockeye runs. To this end we propose to measure biocomplexity in these sockeye runs by quantifying diversity in life-history, morphological (body shape), and genetic traits across different spawning aggregations. We will then compare our results from the Kuskokwim to data that have already been collected from Bristol Bay to determine the extent to which sockeye salmon runs in the Kuskokwim can be expected to fluctuate annually at the regional scale, based on the biocomplexity principle. We emphasize that in this proposal we are seeking funding to collect data from the AYK region only.
Megan McPhee
megan.mcphee@umontana.edu
Flathead Lake Biological Station, UM
(406)982-3301
32125 Bio Station Lane
Polson
MT
59860-6815
Thomas Quinn
tquinn@u.washington.edu
School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences, UW
(206)543-9052
Box 355020
Seattle
WA
98195
Jack Stanford
jack.stanford@umontana.edu
Flathead Lake Biological Station, UM
(406)982-3301
32125 Bio Station Lane
Polson
MT
59860
First Year Funding: $35,016.00Funding
Second Year Funding: $130,107.00
Third Year Funding: $110,126.00
Fourth Year Funding: $14,059.00
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