Climate of Our Future

California Salmon Could Be Harmed By More Dams

Science Daily — Spring-run Chinook salmon and other fish in the rivers of California’s Central Valley could be harmed by more water-storage dams, according to researchers at Duke University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Spring-run Chinook salmon and other fish in the rivers of California’s Central Valley could be harmed by more water-storage dams. (Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

The findings of a recent paper may serve as a cautionary tale to policymakers, scientists and resource managers currently embroiled in a debate about the construction of new dams in the region.

Robert S. Schick, of the University Program in Ecology at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, used analytical techniques from network science to study the relative importance of individual populations of salmon within the valley and examined how the addition of large water-storage dams blocked access to habitat and fragmented these populations over time. Keep reading

Forests Of Endangered Tropical Kelp Discovered

Science Daily — A research team led by San Jose State University and the University of California, Santa Barbara has discovered forests of a species of kelp previously thought endangered or extinct in deep waters near the Galapagos Islands.

Marine iguana feeding in area of kelp forest. (Credit: Dr. Sean Connell, University of Adelaide)The discovery has important implications for biodiversity and the resilience of tropical marine systems to climate change.

“The ecosystems that form in these cold, deep pockets beneath warm tropical waters look more like their cousins in California than the tropical reefs just 200 feet above,” said co-author Brian Kinlan, a researcher with UC Santa Barbara’s Marine Science Institute. “It is very similar to what we see when we climb a high mountain. For example, high alpine country in California looks more like Alaska.” Keep reading