Examining the Effects of Juvenile Migration Timing on Adult Age of Columbia River Salmon Benjamin P. Sandford Fish Ecology Division Fish Ecology Division

Examining the Effectsof Juvenile Migration Timing

on Adult Age of Columbia River Salmon

Benjamin P. Sandford Fish Ecology Division

Northwest Fisheries Science CenterNOAA Fisheries Service

Introduction

• The Columbia/Snake River System has been extensively altered with hydropower and water-storage dams.

• This has significantly altered salmon migration timing patterns for many reasons.

• Understanding the effects of these changes is important for making future management actions.

Objectives

• Characterize the relationship between Year-Of-Return (YOR) probability and various juvenile migration factors for wild yearling Chinook salmon– Barge transport or In-river migration separately– Within-year Bonneville passage date– Migration year– PDO, temperature, and other ocean conditions– Fish length

Methods

Dataset

• Wild yearling spring/summer Chinook salmon PIT-tagged at or above Lower Granite Dam: 1998-2007

• Only used years with a “reasonable number” of adult returns to Lower Granite Dam. This necessitated analyzing barge transport separately from in-river migration

YOR Model –Ordinal Logistic Regression

i

j j

ji X

XXp

1 0

0

)exp(1

)exp()(

Xxp

xpXg

jj

i

ii

0)(1

)(ln)(

Analysis

• Ordinal Logistic Regression• Fit all pertinent models (year, day, daysq, ints)• Compare using Akaike’s QAICc• Plot best model fits

Results

In-river Transported

Year Smolts Adult Returns

LGR LGS LMN Adult Returns

1998 2044 26 6521 892 399 52

1999 6619 214 9593 600 1647 267

2000 8109 267 375 16177 1388 297

2001 1856 7 17009 511 343 169

2002 4779 84 6942 11966 6639 287

2003 6616 20 12932 16846 3594 89

2004 1761 9 20269 3467 1180 122

2005 1536 4 25403 3784 662 74

2006 3020 36 23919 4770 1722 232

2007 3955 47 19241 690 438 202

Wild Snake River PIT-tagged Yearling Chinook Salmon


In-river Migration

Migration Return Year Percent Year of Return

Year Y1 Y2 Y3 Total Y1 Y2 Y3 SAR

1998 2 19 5 26 8 73 19 1.27

1999 2 165 47 214 1 77 22 3.23

2000 8 112 147 267 3 42 55 3.29

2001 1 4 2 7 - - - 0.38

2002 4 70 9 84 5 85 11 1.76

2003 0 13 7 20 0 65 35 0.30

2004 0 6 3 9 0 67 33 0.51

2005 0 1 3 4 0 25 75 0.26

2006 0 29 7 36 0 81 19 1.19

2007 6 34 7 47 13 72 15 1.19

Wild Yearling Chinook – In-river

Model Likelihood Parameters AIC Delta AIC Weight

y, d, y*d -462.30 16 957.39 0.00 0.49

y,d,d2, y*d -462.12 17 959.15 1.76 0.20

y,d,d2, y*d2 -462.19 17 959.29 1.89 0.19

Year, Day, Daysq -469.46 11 961.31 3.92 0.07

y,d -470.74 10 961.79 4.40 0.05

y,d,d2, y*d, y*d2 -460.55 23 968.75 11.35 0.00

y -478.30 9 974.86 17.46 0.00

d -525.01 4 1058.07 100.68 0.00

d, d2 -524.01 5 1058.10 100.70 0.00




Barge Transport

Migration Return Year Percent Year of Return

Year Y1 Y2 Y3 Total Y1 Y2 Y3 SAR

1998 6 36 10 52 12 69 19 0.67

1999 13 210 44 267 5 79 16 2.26

2000 11 131 155 297 4 44 52 1.66

2001 22 121 26 169 13 72 15 0.95

2002 26 200 60 287 9 70 21 1.12

2003 3 59 27 89 3 66 30 0.27

2004 5 75 42 122 4 61 34 0.49

2005 3 46 25 74 4 62 34 0.25

2006 17 170 45 232 7 73 19 0.76

2007 21 157 24 202 10 78 12 0.99

Juvenile Day at Bonneville Dam After April 1

Perc

ent

20

10

0

87.5

75.0

62.5

50.0

37.5

25.0

12.5

87.5

75.0

62.5

50.0

37.5

25.0

12.5

87.5

75.0

62.5

50.0

37.5

25.0

12.5

20

10

0

87.5

75.0

62.5

50.0

37.5

25.0

12.5

20

10

0

1998 1999 2000 2001

2002 2003 2004 2005

2006 2007

Transported Wild Chinook Adult Returns

Wild Yearling Chinook – Transported

Model Likelihood Paramaters AIC Delta AIC Weight

y,d,d2, y*d -1316.90 23 2286.46 0.00 0.62

Year, Day, Daysq -1328.97 14 2288.60 2.14 0.21

y,d,d2, y*d2 -1318.40 23 2289.01 2.55 0.17

y,d,d2, y*d, y*d2 -1313.29 32 2298.90 12.45 0.00

y,d -1337.43 13 2300.95 14.50 0.00

y, d, y*d -1328.80 22 2304.65 18.19 0.00

y -1356.55 12 2331.46 45.00 0.00

d, d2 -1427.06 5 2437.23 150.77 0.00

d -1428.49 4 2437.66 151.20 0.00



Yearling Chinook – In-river

0

20

40

60

80

100

100

105

110

115

120

4/24 5/1 5/8 5/15 5/22 5/29 6/5 6/12 6/19 6/26

Juv

. D

et.

Num

ber

Med.

Leng

th (

mm

)1999

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

100

105

110

115

120

4/24 5/1 5/8 5/15 5/22 5/29 6/5 6/12 6/19 6/26

Juv

. D

et.

Num

ber

Med.

Leng

th (

mm

)

2000

0

50

100

100

110

120

4/24 5/1 5/8 5/15 5/22 5/29 6/5 6/12 6/19 6/26

Juv.

Det

. N

umbe

r

Med

. Len

gth

(mm

)

Date At Bonneville Dam

2002

Environmental Variables 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009PDO (December-March) 11 5 2 8 4 12 7 10 9 6 3 1PDO (May-September) 9 2 3 4 6 11 10 12 8 7 1 5MEI Annual 12 1 3 5 11 10 8 9 6 4 2 7MEI Jan-June 12 2 3 5 8 10 7 11 4 9 1 6

SST at 46050 (May-Sept) 10 8 4 5 1 6 12 9 2 11 3 7SST at NH 05 (May-Sept) 8 2 1 4 6 7 12 11 5 9 3 10SST winter before going to sea 12 7 5 6 4 8 11 10 9 3 1 2Physical Spring Trans (Logerwell) 8 7 2 1 4 10 9 12 10 3 6 5Upwelling (Apr-May) 7 1 11 3 6 10 9 12 7 2 4 5Deep Temperature at NH 05 12 4 5 3 1 7 9 10 11 6 2 8Deep Salinity at NH05 12 3 6 2 5 9 11 8 7 1 4 10Length of upwelling season 7 3 2 10 1 11 9 12 6 5 8 4

Copepod richness 12 2 1 5 3 9 8 11 10 6 4 7N.Copepod Anomaly 12 9 3 6 2 10 7 11 8 5 1 4Biological Transition 11 5 4 7 6 10 8 12 9 2 1 3Copepod Community structure 12 3 4 6 1 8 9 11 10 7 2 5

Catches of salmon in surveysJune-Chinook Catches 11 2 3 9 6 8 10 12 7 5 1 4Sept-Coho Catches 9 2 1 4 3 5 10 11 7 8 6 12

Mean of Ranks of Environmental Data10.4 3.8 3.5 5.2 4.3 8.9 9.2 10.8 7.5 5.5 2.9 5.8RANK of the mean rank 11 3 2 5 4 9 10 12 8 6 1 7

From Peterson et al on NOAA Fisheries NWFSC site: http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/fed/oeip/a-ecinhome.cfm

Summary

• The age of adult return (by year) of wild yearling Chinook salmon increased for later migrants, both in-river and transported.

• There was substantial annual variability in age distribution and relationship to migration timing.

• There was little evidence that fish length (at tagging at dams) explained these results, but this needs more investigation along with ocean conditions.

• It takes a very large number of PIT-tagged individuals to make these assessments!

Thanks!

• Mark Scheuerell and Rich Zabel• COE and BPA• Many PIT-tag coordinators and taggers,

especially Doug Marsh and CSS staff

Questions



Documents

Examining the Effects of Juvenile Migration Timing on Adult Age of Columbia River Salmon Benjamin P. Sandford Fish Ecology Division Fish Ecology Division