EBTJV

Sharing from NPS: Researchers see startling brook trout declines in Shenandoah streams: Land use and pollution used to be brook trout’s biggest problems. But our latest research shows that being a cold-water fish in a warming world might be its greatest challenge yet. By Jeb Wofford and Evan Childress
Located in News & Events / News Inbox
New review of genetic rescue: Is now the time? Shannon White, Jacob Rash, and David Kazyak review the application of genetic rescue to brook trout conservation.
Located in News & Events / News Inbox
Small Grant Program now open: 2023 Small grant program for outreach and education.
Located in News & Events / News Inbox
Matt Kulp talks about restoration projects: Video of Matt Kulp, Supervisory fishery biologist with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and EBTJV steering committee member, presenting a summary of brook trout restoration efforts to date. Presentation was given at the 2022 annual meeting of EBTJV at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, WV and virtually. "Restoration of Brook Trout across Their Native Range Using Fish Toxicants and Electrofishing: Are We Successful Ecologically and Socially?"
Located in News & Events / Videos
From the Field: Tagged brook trout reveal the pristine health of Maryland’s Savage River: April 2012: Follow biologists as they track native brook trout in western Maryland's Savage River, and learn why these fish are used to monitor the health of the freshwater streams that flow to the Chesapeake Bay.
Located in The Story of Wild Brook Trout / Brook Trout Video and Webinar Gallery
Seasonal streamflow extremes are key drivers of Brook Trout young-of-the-year abundance: Based on counts of Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) collected over 28 yr at 115 sites in Shenandoah National Park, we developed mixed-effects models to (1) assess how well extreme streamflow, as compared to mean flows and total precipitation, can explain young-of-the-year (YOY) abundance, (2) identify potential nonlinear relationships between seasonal environmental covariates and abundance using nonlinear generalized additive mixed models, and (3) explore likely impacts of expected future weather and streamflow conditions.
Located in Science and Data / Brook Trout Related Publications
Conservation planning at the intersection of landscape and climate change: brook trout in the Chesapeake Bay watershed: We developed a multi-scale conservation planning framework for brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) within the Chesapeake Bay watershed that incorporates both land use and climate stressors. Our specific objectives were to (1) construct a continuous spatial model of brook trout distribution and habitat quality at the stream reach scale; (2) characterize brook trout vulnerability to climate change under a range of future climate scenarios; and (3) identify multi-scale restoration and protection priorities for brook trout across the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Boosted regression tree analysis predicted brook trout occurrence at the stream reach scale with a high degree of accuracy (CV AUC = 0.92) as a function of both natural (e.g., water temperature and precipitation) and anthropogenic (e.g., agriculture and urban development) landscape and climatic attributes. Current land use activities result in a predicted loss of occurrence in over 11,000 stream segments (40% of suitable habitat) and account for over 15,000 km (45% of current value) of lost functional brook trout fishery value (i.e., length-weighted occurrence probability) in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Climate change (increased ambient temperatures and altered precipitation) is projected to result in a loss of occurrence in at least 3000 additional segments (19% of current value) and at least 3000 km of functional fishery value (9% of current value) by 2062. Model outcomes were used to identify low- and high-quality stream segments within relatively intact and degraded sub-watersheds as restoration and protection priorities, respectively, and conservation priorities were targeted in watersheds with high projected resilience to climate change. Our results suggest that traditional restoration activities, such as habitat enhancement, riparian management, and barrier removal, may be able to recover a substantial amount of brook trout habitat lost to historic landscape change. However, restoration efforts must be designed within the context of expected impacts from climate change or those efforts may not produce long-term benefits to brook trout in this region.
Located in Science and Data / Brook Trout Related Publications
Brook Trout Climate Resilience Research: Research on climate change relevant to brook trout
Located in Science and Data
Climate change influence on brook trout populations in the Central Appalachians - Andrew et al. 2022: We used a 18-year brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) data set with samples across a ~4800 km2 spatial area in the Central Appalachian Mountains, combined with PRISM climate data at the HUC-12 subwatershed level to investigate temporal trends of each. his work provides long-term evidence to help understand the dynamics of these sentinel headwater fish populations as they experience a changing climate.
Located in Science and Data / Brook Trout Related Publications
SENSITIVITY AND VULNERABILITY OF BROOK TROUT POPULATIONS TO CLIMATE CHANGE: We directly measured paired air and water temperatures in watersheds (N = 77) containing reproducing populations of brook trout in Virginia. We found that paired air and water temperature relationships are highly variable among patches but are a useful dataset to classify sensitivity and vulnerability of existing brook trout patches. We developed a classification system using sensitivity and vulnerability metrics that classified sampled brook trout habitats into four categories (High Sensitivity- High Vulnerability (51.9%); High Sensitivity-Low Vulnerability (10.4%); Low Sensitivity-High Vulnerability (7.8%); Low Sensitivity-Low Vulnerability (29.9%). Our direct measurement approach identified potential refugia for brook trout at lower elevations and with higher air temperatures than previous larger scale modeling efforts.
Located in Science and Data / Brook Trout Related Publications

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