Premium
Salmonid colonization of new streams in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska
Author(s) -
MILNER A. M.,
BAILEY R. G.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
aquaculture research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.646
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1365-2109
pISSN - 1355-557X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2109.1989.tb00343.x
Subject(s) - oncorhynchus , bay , large woody debris , streams , riparian zone , salvelinus , fishery , glacier , juvenile , habitat , ecology , biology , oceanography , geography , trout , physical geography , geology , fish <actinopterygii> , computer network , computer science
. Following the rapid recession of a neoglacial ice sheet within the last 250 years, colonization of recently deglaciated streams by salmonid fishes was investigated in Glacier Bay National Park, south‐eastern Alaska. The primary factors governing the establishment, species diversity composition and abundance of salmonids in Glacier Bay streams were water temperature, sediment loading and stream discharge. No salmonids were found in the turbid meltwater streams emerging from retreating ice. Coho, Oncorhynchus kisutch (Walbaum), and sockeye, Oncorhynchus nerka (Walbaum). salmon and Dolly Vardcn, Salvelinus malma (Walbaum), charr were the first salmonids to colonize the youngest clearwater stream. Juvenile Dolly Varden were more abundant than juvenile coho salmon in the most recently formed clearwater stream because of the characteristic absence of pool habital. Densities of juvenile coho salmon were six times greater in a stream with a series of lakes compared with a stream of similar age without lakes. Future advancement of salmonid stocks will probably depend upon the rate and extent of the development of riparian vegetation and inputs of large woody debris from the developing forest to provide further instream cover, habitat variation and channel stabilization.