Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Chesapeake Watershed CESU

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The USGS is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research that provides an updated distribution of fish species native to the Pacific Northwest based on an analysis of species-specific sensitivity and adaptive capacity to climate change. The project will align three modeled environmental datasets (PROSPER streamflow permanence, NORWEST water temperature, and monthly streamflow estimates) and pair these with an aggregated observational dataset of 72 fish species occurring in the PNW to assess species-specific vulnerability to streamflow and water temperature change. The proposed climate vulnerability assessment for fish species in the PNW builds on the assessment of sensitivity to climate change by Mims et al. (2018) that focused on broader terrestrial indicators. Comprehensive assessments of species vulnerability to climate include three fundamental components of 1) exposure, in terms of the magnitude and rate of environmental change, 2) species sensitivity to environmental change, and 3) adaptive capacity to respond to environmental change (Kovach et al., 2019). The opportunity here provides an added dimension of exposure to in-stream conditions that is a critical step in moving from coarse-scale sensitivity analyses to a comprehensive, management-relevant vulnerability analysis of fish species native to the Pacific Northwest based on an analysis of species specific sensitivity and adaptive capacity to climate change.

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