Summary
With funding from the Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (NW CASC), I explored population-level outcomes of multi-species invasions under climate change. The project was built upon a multi-dimensional framework that facilitated collaboration amongst state, tribal, and academic groups. My contribution included the development of a spatially-explicit, multispecies individual-based model to identify emergent patterns resulting from interactions between two invasive species: smallmouth bass and rusty crayfish. The life history of both species and their interactions are parameterized by values derived from literature and empirical data from the study system itself. To best represent complex ecological dynamics, we integrated density and temperature dependencies within population (e.g., movement, survival) and interaction events (e.g., predation).
Simultaneously, a framework for integrating climate change scenarios was developed to provide valuable model output across a 40-year timespan (1999-2040).
In a broader sense, I sought to understand the implications these invaders have for endangered Chinook and threatened steelhead of the John Day River Basin. The framework we developed can either be used by management or serve as a guide by producing restrospective and prospective predictions. on a river-reach scale to promote efficient allocation of resources by prioritizing areas of concern. For example, predation of crayfish on bass nests is a density-driven interaction and has the potential to reduce the recruitment of bass in an area of high crayfish density. If this area also functions as prime rearing habitat for steelhead, then managers can functionally reduce or modify their efforts in that section of river.
Read more about this project from our collaborators at the Computational Ecology Group.
SciComm
WDAFS 2023 - Boise, Idaho: Towards a better understanding of invasive crayfish impacts on salmonids
ESA 2023 - Portland, Oregon: Density-driven interactions between two invaders with implications for endangered salmon
AFS 2024 - Honolulu, Hawai’i: Temperature-mediated interactions between invaders in salmon-rearing habitat
