For decades, climate change has had detrimental impacts on Pacific salmon populations. Spawning streams are overheating and droughts are drying up salmon habitats entirely, impacting many food webs from the Rocky Mountains and Coast Ranges to the Pacific Ocean.
For decades, climate change has had detrimental impacts on Pacific salmon populations. Spawning streams are overheating and droughts are drying up salmon habitats entirely, impacting many food webs from the Rocky Mountains and Coast Ranges to the Pacific Ocean.
But in a new study involving researchers from the University of Montana’s Flathead Lake Biological Station, scientists discovered warming trends may offer one silver lining, if only for a while: The retreat of glaciers in the Pacific mountains of western North America potentially could produce more than 6,000 kilometers of new Pacific salmon habitat by the year 2100.
“Climate change alters the shape and dynamics of stream ecosystems,” said Diane Whited, an FLBS scientist whose role in the study focused on spatial modeling of potentially accessible stream habitat once glaciers have receded. “This information is crucial for managing the future of salmon habitat and productivity.”
The work was led by Simon Fraser University and recently published in Nature Communications.
Researchers modeled glacial retreat under different climate change scenarios. To accomplish this, they used computer models to peel back the ice of 46,000 glaciers between southern British Columbia and south-central Alaska to look at how much potential salmon habitat would be created when the underlying bedrock is exposed and new streams flow over the landscape.
Read more at: University of Montana
While the newly created habitat may be a ray of light for salmon in some locations, climate change continues to pose grave challenges for salmon and other fish populations. (Photo Credit: Flathead Lake Biological Station)
