Sharing FAIR monitoring program data improves discoverability and reuse.

Data resulting from environmental monitoring programs are valuable assets for natural resource managers, decision-makers, and researchers. These data are often collected to inform specific reporting needs or decisions with a specific timeframe. While program-oriented data and related publications are effective for meeting program goals, sharing well-documented data and metadata allows users to research aspects outside initial program intentions. As part of an effort to integrate data from four long-term large-scale US aquatic monitoring programs, we evaluated the original datasets against the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles and offer recommendations and lessons learned. Differences in data governance across these programs resulted in considerable effort to access and reuse the original datasets. Requirements, guidance, and resources available to support data publishing and documentation are inconsistent across agencies and monitoring programs, resulting in various data formats and storage locations that are not easily found, accessed, or reused. Making monitoring data FAIR will reduce barriers to data discovery and reuse. Programs are continuously striving to improve data management, data products, and metadata; however, provision of related tools, consistent guidelines and standards, and more resources to do this work is needed. Given the value of these data and the significant effort required to access and reuse them, actions and steps intended on improving data documentation and accessibility are described.

The social-ecological system of the Kenai River Fishery (Alaska, USA).

We present a collaboratively developed social-ecological model of the Kenai River Fishery. We developed the model through iterative interviews with stakeholders throughout the Kenai Peninsula using a novel participatory Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping process grounded in Ostrom's social-ecological systems framework. Individual social-ecological models, developed one-on-one with stakeholders, were combined into a single aggregated model representing the system's structure and function. We validated this aggregated model through subsequent interviews with stakeholders and focused literature reviews. The result is a model that can: 1) illustrate the breadth and interconnectedness of the Kenai River Fishery's social-ecological system; 2) be used to facilitate discussions around management of the fishery; and 3) be used to explore the components and interactions that move the system toward or away from sustainability. Using the model, we identify how the nature of salmon (migratory) and their habitat (large and unpredictable) leads to uncertainty about effective management strategies. This uncertainty, in addition to a large and diverse set of resource users, creates conflicting management goals that ultimately limit the governance system in making decisions that might increase the sustainability of the fishery.

Broad-scale eDNA sampling for describing aquatic species distributions in running waters: Pacific lamprey Entosphenus tridentatus in the upper Snake River, USA.

One of the most fundamental yet challenging tasks for aquatic ecologists is to precisely delineate the range of species, particularly those that are broadly distributed, require specialized sampling methods, and may be simultaneously declining and increasing in different portions of their range. An exemplar is the Pacific lamprey Entosphenus tridentatus, a jawless anadromous fish of conservation concern that is actively managed in many coastal basins in western North America. To efficiently determine its distribution across the accessible 56,168 km of the upper Snake River basin in the north-western United States, we first delimited potential habitat by using predictions from a species distribution model based on conventionally collected historical data and from the distribution of a potential surrogate, Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, which yielded a potential habitat network of 10,615 km. Within this area, we conducted a two-stage environmental DNA survey involving 394 new samples and 187 archived samples collected by professional biologists and citizen scientists using a single, standardized method from 2015 to 2021. We estimated that Pacific lamprey occupied 1875 km of lotic habitat in this basin, of which 1444 km may have been influenced by recent translocation efforts. Pacific lamprey DNA was consistently present throughout most river main stems, although detections became weaker or less frequent in the largest and warmest downstream channels and near their headwater extent. Pacific lamprey were detected in nearly all stocked tributaries, but there was no evidence of indigenous populations in such habitats. There was evidence of post-stocking movement because detections were 1.8-36.0 km upstream from release sites. By crafting a model-driven spatial sampling template and executing an eDNA-based sampling campaign led by professionals and volunteers, supplemented by previously collected samples, we established a benchmark for understanding the current range of Pacific lamprey across a large portion of its range in the interior Columbia River basin. This approach could be tailored to refine range estimates for other wide-ranging aquatic species of conservation concern.

Beaver dam influences on streamflow hydraulic properties and thermal regimes.

Beaver dams alter channel hydraulics which in turn change the geomorphic templates of streams. Variability in geomorphic units, the building blocks of stream systems, and water temperature, critical to stream ecological function, define habitat heterogeneity and availability. While prior research has shown the impact of beaver dams on stream hydraulics, geomorphic template, or temperature, the connections or feedbacks between these habitat measures are not well understood. This has left questions regarding relationships between temperature variability at different spatial scales to hydraulic properties such as flow depth and velocity that are dependent on the geomorphology. We combine detailed predicted hydraulic properties, field-based maps with an additional classification scheme of geomorphic units, and detailed water temperature observations throughout a study reach to demonstrate the relationship between these factors at different spatial scales (reach, beaver dam complexes, and geomorphic units). Over a three-week, low flow period we found temperature to vary 2 °C between the upstream and downstream extents of the reach with a net warming of 1 °C during the day and a net cooling of 0.5 °C at night. At the beaver dam complex scale, net warming of 1.15 °C occurred during the day with variable cooling at night. Regardless of limited temperature changes at these larger scales, the temperature variability within a beaver dam complex reached up to 10.5 °C due to the diversity of geomorphic units. At the geomorphic unit scale, the highly altered flow velocity and depth distributions within primary geomorphic units provide an explanation of the temperature variability within the dam complex and insight regarding increases in habitat heterogeneity.

Did changes in western federal land management policies improve salmonid habitat in streams on public lands within the Interior Columbia River Basin?

Historic management actions authorized or allowed by federal land management agencies have had a profound negative effect on salmon, trout, and char populations and their habitats. To rectify past failings, in the 1990s, federal agencies in the Interior Columbia River Basin modified how they conducted land management activities to foster the conservation of aquatic species. The primary policy changes were to provide additional protection and restoration of lands near streams, lakes, and wetlands. What remains uncertain was whether these changes have altered the trajectory of stream habitat conditions. To address this question, we evaluate the status and trends of ten stream habitat attributes; wood frequency, wood volume, residual pool depth, percent pool, pool frequency, pool tail fines (< 6 mm), median particle size, percent undercut banks, bank angle, and streambank stability in managed and reference catchments following changes in management policies. Our review of these data support the hypothesis that changes made in management standards and guidelines in the 1990s are related to improved stream conditions. Determining the precise magnitude of changes in stream conditions that resulted from the modification of land management policies is difficult due to the shifting environmental baseline. By understanding and accounting for how changes in stream conditions reflect improved land management policies and broader environmental trends, federal agencies will be better situated to make project level decisions that benefit aquatic resources.