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Forecasting climate change effects on aquatic fauna and their habitat requires an understanding of how water temperature responds to changing air temperature (i.e., thermal sensitivity). Previous efforts to forecast climate effects on brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) habitat have generally assumed uniform air-water temperature relationships over large areas that cannot account for groundwater inputs and other processes that operate at finer spatial scales. We developed regression models that accounted for groundwater influences on thermal sensitivity from measured air-water temperature relationships within forested watersheds in eastern North America (Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, USA, 78 sites in nine watersheds). We used these reach-scale models to forecast climate change effects on stream temperature and brook trout thermal habitat, and compared our results to previous forecasts based upon large-scale models. Observed stream temperatures were generally less sensitive to air temperature than previously assumed, and we attribute this to the moderating effect of shallow groundwater inputs. Predicted groundwater temperatures from air-water regression models corresponded well to observed groundwater temperatures elsewhere in the study area. Predictions of brook trout future habitat loss derived from our fine-grained models were far less pessimistic than those from prior models developed at coarser spatial resolutions. However, our models also revealed spatial variation in thermal sensitivity within and among catchments resulting in a patchy distribution of thermally suitable habitat. Habitat fragmentation due to thermal barriers therefore may have an increasingly important role for trout population viability in headwater streams. Our results demonstrate that simple adjustments to air-water temperature regression models can provide a powerful and costeffective approach for predicting future stream temperatures while accounting for effects of groundwater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between habitat variability and population size in fragmented habitats is poorly understood, yet might have important evolutionary consequences. For instance, fragmentation could (1) shift habitat characteristics, and by extension, selective regimes, in a consistent direction as populations and the fragments they occupy are reduced in size (directional hypothesis); or (2) increase variability in habitats among similarly sized populations as fragment size decreases (variable hypothesis). We investigated these alternatives based on multiyear habitat, demographic, and genetic data from 19 fragmented populations of a stream fish varying in census size (N) and effective number of breeders (Nb). Mean habitat parameters were significantly related to N and Nb, but the forms of the relationships varied, and there was no evidence of consistent directional differences in habitat parameters from small to large population size. Small populations exhibited a wider range of variances in habitat parameters than large populations, and to a lesser extent, small populations also had greater variability in mean habitat parameters, possibly signaling more diverse selective regimes. These results suggest that many different environments are associated with small population size in nature, counter to the frequently cited assumption that small populations tend to occur only in marginal environments. In addition to well-documented demographic and genetic stochasticity operating within small populations, our work raises the possibility that small populations exhibit more variable and potentially less predictable evolutionary responses to future environmental change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examines the modeling framework based on dispersal kernels which describes stream fish dispersal. The study uses mark-recapture trials to measure summer dispersal of brook trout or Salvelinus fontinalis in four streams. The study reveals that the proposed modeling framework expands the dispersal kernels by integrating structural barriers.

The article presents a study on the effect of climate change on southern Appalachian stream populations such as book and rainbow trout which are tracked for 30 years using a geographic information system database. The abundances of trout are found to increase due to the increased in temperature while the complexity of the changes in the abundances of trout in zones are associated with temperature and stream flow.