The Effects of Drought on Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout: The Role of Stream Intermittency

Start Date

2013-08

End Date

2018-09-30

Release Date

2013

Rio Grande cutthroat trout (RGCT) is endemic to the Rio Grande, Canadian, and Pecos River basins of Colorado and New Mexico. Reduced summer stream flow and drought are listed as major threats to its future persistence because most populations of RGCT occupy streams that are small and highly fragmented. Low winter snowpack and reduced seasonal precipitation across the subspecies range since 2010 has resulted in baseflows well below 1.0 cubic foot per second with extended reaches becoming dry. The full extent of how drought will impact RGCT is unknown because only a portion of the populations are monitored annually by management agencies and generally on a single day. Annual monitoring of thermal limits of RGCT populations is ongoing by the project researchers. Thus, additional work on habitat availability and population assessment would occur during annual monitoring surveys (September-October). Researchers plan to model the relationship between habitat availability with landscape data (size of watershed, slope, aspect, land-use) to predict the relationship between stream flow and habitat availability. This data will then be used to inform managers how and where habitat provides sufficient refuge for RGCT during summer base flow and future drought. From this data, the team can recommend how to restore stream reaches.

ScienceBase WMS

• National CASC
• National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers

Data source

Input directly