Spatial ecology of salmon parr in a river impacted by hydropower
Forsøkssammendrag
1 Formål
The purpose of this research is to investigate the movement of salmonid parr in rivers using telemetry tracking. Parr are juvenile life stages of salmonids that are relatively area restricted. Many conservation and restoration studies rely on capturing parr by electrofishing and the spatial ecology of this life stage is therefore crucial to understand, yet poorly studied in details afforded by tools such as acoustic telemetry. This study will track parr at the reach scale for three months using small acoustic transmitters to reveal how these fish move in relation to their environment and the discharge from a hydropower plant during autumn months.
2 Skadevirkninger
This is a moderately stressful procedure involving the capture by electrofishing and tagging of parr. This procedure is standard for telemetry studies and widely used with great success and limited mortality. We believe this method has great promise and plan to initiate a pilot study in 2021 with a few tags and short river stretch to validate the tagging of these small fish and determine whether it is feasible to scale up to a larger study in 2022-2023.
3 Forventet nytteverdi
This study will add fundamental information about the movements of parr that are difficult to ascertain from studies without tagging or with other tag types. Capture-recapture of PIT tagged fish is challenging in part because we don’t know enough about how far these fish move or how vulnerable they are to capture at different times. Indeed, this is part of the applied importance of the research, to inform survey methods using electrofishing by revealing when parr are most vulnerable to capture by electrofishing. In addition, the activity of the parr will allow us to give advice on how to optimize discharge patterns from the hydropower plant to reduce likelihood of stranding.
4 Antall dyr og art
The project will require 150 salmonids at the parr life stage. These will be captured by electrofishing. The pilot project will take place in 2021 with 30 individuals captured and tagged. Based on results of the pilot, a full project with 120 fish will be initiated in 2022.
5 Hvordan etterleve 3R
We intend to reduce the number of animals used in this study by using acoustic tags, which provide much higher resolution detail about movement and behaviour than PIT or other monitoring methods that provide such poor resolution data that many fish must be tagged to make good observations.
To refine this study, we plan to conduct a pilot in August 2021 so that we can evaluate the study design and the use of the tagging procedure on parr. Based on the pilot in 2021 the full project (120 fish) will be refined and proceed in 2022 given the successful completion of the pilot.
1 Formål
The purpose of this research is to investigate the movement of salmonid parr in rivers using telemetry tracking. Parr are juvenile life stages of salmonids that are relatively area restricted. Many conservation and restoration studies rely on capturing parr by electrofishing and the spatial ecology of this life stage is therefore crucial to understand, yet poorly studied in details afforded by tools such as acoustic telemetry. This study will track parr at the reach scale for three months using small acoustic transmitters to reveal how these fish move in relation to their environment and the discharge from a hydropower plant during autumn months.
2 Skadevirkninger
This is a moderately stressful procedure involving the capture by electrofishing and tagging of parr. This procedure is standard for telemetry studies and widely used with great success and limited mortality. We believe this method has great promise and plan to initiate a pilot study in 2021 with a few tags and short river stretch to validate the tagging of these small fish and determine whether it is feasible to scale up to a larger study in 2022-2023.
3 Forventet nytteverdi
This study will add fundamental information about the movements of parr that are difficult to ascertain from studies without tagging or with other tag types. Capture-recapture of PIT tagged fish is challenging in part because we don’t know enough about how far these fish move or how vulnerable they are to capture at different times. Indeed, this is part of the applied importance of the research, to inform survey methods using electrofishing by revealing when parr are most vulnerable to capture by electrofishing. In addition, the activity of the parr will allow us to give advice on how to optimize discharge patterns from the hydropower plant to reduce likelihood of stranding.
4 Antall dyr og art
The project will require 150 salmonids at the parr life stage. These will be captured by electrofishing. The pilot project will take place in 2021 with 30 individuals captured and tagged. Based on results of the pilot, a full project with 120 fish will be initiated in 2022.
5 Hvordan etterleve 3R
We intend to reduce the number of animals used in this study by using acoustic tags, which provide much higher resolution detail about movement and behaviour than PIT or other monitoring methods that provide such poor resolution data that many fish must be tagged to make good observations.
To refine this study, we plan to conduct a pilot in August 2021 so that we can evaluate the study design and the use of the tagging procedure on parr. Based on the pilot in 2021 the full project (120 fish) will be refined and proceed in 2022 given the successful completion of the pilot.