59885

1998-014-00 EXP OCEAN SURVIVAL OF SALMONIDS (OSU)

10/1/2012

9/30/2013

162. Analyze/Interpret Data

Work Element Usage Report

D: 162 - Assess the role of the plume on salmon growth and survival

Data will be collected to determine the following:

Through analytical assessment of biological features of juvenile salmon in and out of the Columbia River plume, assess the role of unique features of the Columbia River plume that affect salmon growth and survival.

Juvenile salmon species will be confirmed from cruise sampling, weighed and measured, and dissected. Samples will be distributed for analyses to assess genetic composition, growth characteristics, food consumed.

Identify food habits and relationship to juvenile salmon metrics in and out of the Columbia River plume.

Identify prey field abundance and species composition

Continue to develop and refine indicators

Database will be updated. Data regarding each individual juvenile salmon sampled in 2012 and some information from sampling in 2013, including species, size, location of capture, associated oceanographic conditions of sample site, food composition, and growth features will be entered into an MS Access database of all juvenile salmon sampled from this project for the period beginning in 1998 to the present.

Datasets will be incorporated to the updated Access database including current sample analysis.

- Process fish from 2012 and 2013 (assuming the cruise is completed by the end of June), including lengths, weights, and collection of tissue samples, enter all data and QA/QC.

- Assess growth (somatic and energetic) characteristics of juvenile salmon in relation to the physical structure of the Columbia River plume and coastal marine waters of Oregon and Washington.

- Assist NOAA with analyses of genetic stock-specific distributions of juvenile Chinook salmon

- Analyze a selected set of prey field samples from 2012 ocean cruises

- Generate indices of the salmon prey field

- Process nutrient and chlorophyll samples from 2012 and upload into database.

- Conduct diet analysis from a select set of samples from 2012 ocean cruises

- FY 13 cruise related planning, staging and conducting one to two cruises during FY13


Journal articles and cruise reports will be prepared (submission not funded by BPA) in collaboration with NOAA describing:

a) Juvenile steelhead distribution, migration, growth and feeding in the CR estuary and plume. (NOAA Lead: Brodeur). OSU collaborator (Daly): complete diet analysis, conduct statistical analyses, construct figures and tables, and write methods and results.

•Information from Columbia River estuary and ocean caught juvenile steelhead will be compiled from multiple years and months to elucidate effects of the marine environment on distribution, movement patterns, size and growth, and feeding success.

Some of our findings to date include:

•Steelhead originating from the Columbia River were caught off the mouth of the Columbia River, while most steelhead originating from north Washington Coast rivers were caught off the north Washington Coast, indicating steelhead were generally moving westwards upon ocean entry.
•Despite being shorter in fork length, unmarked (presumably wild) fish had a higher average body condition than marked fish across all years although both groups tended to co-vary among years. IGF-1 growth rates were also higher in unmarked fish compared to hatchery fish.
•Feeding conditions vary interannually in the ocean which may lead to differences in growth and survival. Steelhead juveniles appear to utilize the estuary primarily as a migration corridor due to the low body condition, low feeding intensity, and high percentage of empty stomachs compared to ocean caught steelhead.
•The extremely limited time that steelhead spend in coastal waters makes them much less vulnerable to anomalous conditions in coastal habitats that may depress growth or survival, especially compared to other species that may spend months—rather than days or weeks—in coastal waters. Conversely, plume conditions appear to be more important to steelhead which has important implications for river-flow management.


b) The effects of the Columbia River plume and fluctuating oceanographic conditions on the feeding ecology and survival of juvenile Chinook salmon. (NOAA Lead: Brodeur). OSU collaborator (Daly): complete diet analysis, conduct statistical analyses, construct figures and tables, and write methods and results.

Some of our findings to date include:

•The condition of spring Chinook salmon from interior stocks increased significantly with plume volume and Columbia River flow in June, but this relationship was not observed for lower river stocks.
•Spring Chinook salmon diet composition varied with oceanographic conditions and the overall prey community eaten by the salmon in early summer was related to marine survival.
•Chinook salmon feeding intensity increased significantly during warmer ocean conditions, suggesting a higher demand for prey resources to meet basic metabolic processes needed for survival.
•Recent salmon food habits were compared to trophic work done in the 1980s (OSU Oceanography data) and changes were more strongly related to interannual changes in ocean conditions versus decadal changes in trophic habits.
•This has important implications for hatchery release programs in that in warm years, survival is likely to be low despite an apparent abundance of marine food. The prey quality may be as important as prey quantity in determining survival.


c) Distribution and Abundance of juvenile Chinook salmon off the Oregon and Washington coasts by ESU: 1998-2011. (NOAA Lead: Teel). OSU collaborator (Morgan): construct and maintain database, calculate stock-specific abundances (CPUE) by station and cruise, calculate and plot charts of stock-specific climatological averages (1998 -2011), write portions of methods and results, and assist with statistical analyses, figures, tables, interpretation and discussion.

•Microsatellite DNA data will be used to present stock-specific distributions and abundances (CPUEs) of juvenile Chinook salmon caught in May, June, and September trawls from 1998 - 2011. Data for genetic stocks from all ESUs from CA to southern BC (including all CR Basin ESUs) will be presented. Fish lengths will be used to analyze subyearling and yearling juveniles separately.
•Taken together, the distribution and abundance results will allow us to identify when and where monitoring of the early marine phase should occur for particular ESUs and life histories (e.g., Snake R spring Chinook yearlings).
•Some limitations of this analysis are the incomplete marking of hatchery juveniles and paucity of ESU-specific freshwater production data for natural smolts.

This product will address some of the following questions:
•Where are juveniles from various stocks in late spring? Early summer? End of summer? Are the distributions consistent from year to year? Are the distributions the same for hatchery and naturally produced fish from the same stock? Are the distributions the same for subyearlings and yearlings from the same ESU (e.g., Snake R fall run)? Distribution results will provide information on timing and migration of specific stocks and life histories. What are the relative abundances of the stocks in each of these periods? What are the relative proportions of hatchery and naturally produced juveniles for each stock? Are the annual fluctuations of various stocks synchronous? Are shifts in nearshore juvenile abundances related to the numbers of smolts produced in freshwater? Abundance results will provide information on the scale that annual variability in early marine abundance occurs.


e) Habitat characteristics of sub-yearling Chinook salmon during their first summer at sea in continental shelf waters off Washington and Oregon U.S.A. (NOAA Lead: Peterson). OSU collaborator (Morgan): construct and maintain database, conduct statistical analysis, construct figures and tables, write methods and results.

Some of our findings to date include:

•Sub-yearling Chinook salmon were found exclusively in continental shelf waters, usually very close to shore
•They showed a patchy distribution: half were collected in ~ 5 % of the trawls and none were collected in ~ 40% of the trawls.
•The juvenile salmon were most abundant in the vicinity of the Columbia River and the Washington coast in June; by September they were distributed evenly along the coast from central Oregon north to the tip of Washington State.
•80% of the sub-yearling Chinook salmon were caught from the nearshore zone (25 m depth) out to a depth of 78 m (June) but only to depths of 49 m in September.
•Abundances were significantly correlated with water depth (negatively; 20 of 30 cruises), temperature (negatively, 11 of 30 cruises), chlorophyll (inconsistent, but positively; 12 of 30 cruises) and copepod biomass (positively; 9 of 19 cruises).
•Our sampling program does not adequately sample sub-yearling Chinook because we cannot sample in waters shallower than 25 m depth. We know from other recent work, that these fish can be found in the surf-zone thus we are missing an unknown proportion of the population that inhabits shallow waters between depths of tens of cm out to depths of 25-30 m.


i) June and September 2012 and 2013 cruise reports (OSU Lead: Morgan).

•These reports provide a description of cruise objectives, results of the cruise as well as a summary of data collected on each juvenile salmon sampling cruise and include the following items:

•Tables showing (1) station and station location along with start position of each trawl (lat and long), start and end time and trawl duration and trawl duration; (2) hydrographic data at each station (sea surface temperature, sea surface salinity, chlorophyll, fluorometer voltage, % transmission, depth and value of oxygen minimum) and (3) a table that lists the catches of each taxa in the trawl, by station.
•Tables showing number of salmonid caught on each transect along with catch per unit effort in units of number of fish caught per km towed,
•A table that summarizes, for each year, the total number of salmonids and their CPUE, from 1998-present. Similarly we include charts showing for all years (1998-present) the average temperatures at 1 m and 50 m, chlorophyll-a, catches of baitfish and fish predators as well as seabird abundances (2003 - present).
•Charts showing (in plan view) the spatial distribution of 1 m temperature, 1 m salinity, 3 m chlorophyll, 1 m % transmission, minimum oxygen values and CPUE of each salmonid taxa.
•Charts showing average CPUE (Catch per Unit Effort, number per km towed) of subyearling Chinook, and yearling Chinook and coho salmon caught during each of our June cruises, 1998 – 2011 versus Fall and Spring Chinook jack salmon counts at Bonneville and the Oregon Production Index Area coho smolt to adult survival (SAR).

j) Update web page adding updated indicators - Ocean Ecosystem Indicators of Salmon Marine Survival in the Northern California Current (NOAA Lead: Peterson). OSU collaborator (Morgan): Calculate and update timing and length of biological spring and fall transition, calculation of copepod community index values, June spring Chinook salmon and September coho salmon CPUEs vs returns and survival, comparison of annual catches of Chinook and coho salmon, plots of climatological averages of juvenile Chinook and coho salmon, and updates to text on state of the ocean of current year versus previous years and outlook of salmon returns for salmon entering the ocean in the past year.

•Updates are produced semi-annually, in winter and summer; updates are posted to the web by early January and early June. http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/fed/oeip/a-ecinhome.cfm


l) Using prey resources as a predictor of juvenile salmon marine survival (NOAA Lead: Brodeur). OSU collaborator (Daly): complete diet analysis, conduct statistical analyses, construct figures and tables, and write methods and results.

Some of our findings to date include:
•The vast majority of juvenile salmon diets during early summer marine residence are comprised of winter spawned fish taxa. We calculated winter ichthyoplankton biomass values from the Newport Hydrographic line developed as part of a FATE funded project as a time series of salmon prey resources.
•Prey biomass and community composition fluctuated annually in correspondence with winter oceanographic conditions in the Northern California Current and were significantly correlated to the marine survival of coho and spring and fall Chinook salmon.
•During warmer winter ocean conditions larval fish biomass is suppressed and increasingly dominated by winter-spawned rockfish leading to poor marine survival of salmon.
•Larval fishes appear to be a good indicator of ocean conditions, and we recommend they can be an early and cost-effective performance indicator of future juvenile salmon survival. Larval biomass or composition has been consistently ranked among the highest biological indicators for Chinook survival.
•Additionally, this is one of the first indicators that is available (end of March) to predict the ocean environment that the salmon will encounter.

$101,428

46.31%

10/01/2012

09/30/2013

09/24/2013

Concluded

n/a

n/a

Recurring