Science Spotlights
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Alaskan salmon have become smaller over the past half-century
The trends noted by Indigenous people, scientists, managers, and fishers within their own systems are not aberrations: Alaskan salmon are getting smaller throughout the entire state…
No ‘smoking gun’ for Alaskan Chinook declines
A new study has challenged the view that the past decade of declines in the productivity of Alaskan Chinook salmon populations has been driven primarily by adverse conditions within their shared marine environment…
Habitat refuges crucial in streams with low summer flows
Although human-driven changes in environmental conditions pose a threat to all of California’s remaining salmon runs, stocks that return to and reproduce in intermittent streams – those that flow only during the rainy months of the year – may be at particular risk…
Review provides body of evidence that estuary development can put juvenile salmon at risk
A recent literature review—the first to systematically review studies of the impacts that estuary developments may have on juvenile salmon—has identified multiple activities and stressors that are likely to negatively impact salmon…
Giving up a little harvest can have large conservation benefits in a mixed-stock salmon fishery
More than a dozen Chinook salmon populations, each with unique population dynamics, exist in the Kuskokwim River, Alaska; home to the largest Chinook subsistence fishery in the world…
Glacier retreat will affect salmon habitat
Glaciers in western North America are retreating rapidly due to climate warming, with potential implications for downstream Pacific salmon habitat…
Human disturbances altering sockeye life-history
Analysis of long-term datasets on the ages and sizes of sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Bristol Bay reveals changes in juvenile development and seaward migration timing, due to increased freshwater prey abundance triggered by climate warming…
Well-intentioned transport of hatchery fish may erode salmon biodiversity
Since the 1980s, hatchery-reared Chinook salmon in California’s Central Valley have been trucked increasing distances from source hatcheries to circumvent survival bottlenecks…
Shifting habitat mosaics stabilize salmon production
Variation in how habitats respond to changing environmental regimes influences the locations within river basins where fish production is highest from year to year, which affects fisheries yields, management strategies, and conservation efforts…
Evolving salmon use in the far north
Local and Indigenous knowledge suggests that the story of salmon moving northward into the Arctic has been oversimplified by Western scientists…
Human impacts driving loss of spring-run Chinook
Chinook salmon exhibit “spring-run” or “fall-run” migration timing in many parts of their range, which permits spawning during different periods of the year to minimize the risk of adverse conditions or facilitate access to spawning grounds…
Morphodynamic evolution following sediment release from the world’s largest dam removal
Removal of two mainstem dams on the Elwha River in Washington State is the world’s largest river restoration project and a unique natural experiment…