Monitoring responses of Pacific salmon to climate change

This working group will develop monitoring programs that can identify changes in populations of Pacific salmon and attribute those changes to different potential mechanisms, including climatic change. Analyses of data from such programs will (1) document changes in salmon populations, (2) provide empirical data to compare with previous predictions, (3)inform evaluation of alternative hypotheses about mechanisms by which climate change affects salmon, and (4) inform suggested actions to maintain wild Pacific salmon populations over the long term. The group will develop guidelines for identifying an appropriate monitoring design given both budget constraints and location-specific concerns about the response of Pacific salmon to climate change. These guidelines will be applied to several illustrative situations. Further, the group will explore the consequences of deviating from the “best” design for a given situation, which will facilitate quantification of tradeoffs among monitoring programs.