Life History Modelling Project for Wild Atlantic Salmon – Dalhousie University

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $37,500 in funding via the Partnership Fund for this project by a research team led by Dr. Jeff Hutchings at Dalhousie University.  They will model life cycle risks to North American Atlantic salmon populations now experiencing high levels of natural mortality to learn more about how to develop mitigation strategies. Extraordinary losses occur in the estuarine and marine environment but the causes, locations, and timing of the various sources of mortality and stage in the life history are largely unknown. The objective of this planned work is to develop a dynamic life history model based on the risk probabilities that can be used to further explore the factors affecting the survival of Atlantic salmon. The work includes analyses of per capita population growth, life-history elasticity, model sensitivity, and patterns of density dependence at different spatio-temporal scales. The model parameters will be based on a review of data throughout the geographic range of the species, updating one undertaken in 1998. The over-arching goal of the project is to apply the model to address fundamental questions pertaining to population viability of Atlantic salmon.

Project Number: Gulf2016.21
Year: 2017
Partner: Dalhousie University
Principal Investigator: Dr. Jeff Hutchings
Eco- region: Atlantic