Project
Development of a decision support tool to predict fish production in newly-opened habitat in a changing climate
In the Great Lakes, terminal barrier removal to enhance fish passage requires considering tradeoffs for native fish passage, needs for increased sea lamprey control, and passage of other potentially undesirable species (e.g., Pacific salmonids). In addition, ecosystem change will affect species’ productivity, adding uncertainty to the question of whether barrier removals will result in costly new lampricide treatment. Our ultimate goal is to develop a flexible decision support tool (DST) that projects effects of increased fish passage on productivity of resident and migratory native, non-native, and invasive fishes; accounts for potential effects of climate change (i.e., changes in temperature and precipitation); and can be easily modified for any barrier decision. In this project, we will expand an existing model to a set of case study streams to enhance its suitability as a basin-wide DST for barrier decisions and to incorporate the effects of climate change into fish production projections. This project will result in a more streamlined model that can be developed fully into a DST for future fish passage decisions (phase 3), including applications of selective fish passage similar to the FishPass project, and provide needed information to decision makers on the case study streams.