Modeling Responses of Riverine Fish Assemblages to Habitat and Water Quality Improvements
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Successful and efficient restoration of fish habitats and populations requires making well-informed decisions about when and where to implement various conservation practices. Operating within the bounds of limited resources and with imperfect information about complex ecological processes, managers must make difficult decisions that will likely become increasingly more challenging with changing climate. In this presentation, we showcase a fish assemblage model that incorporates fish habitat suitability, species interactions, and movement to explore future scenarios of water quality and habitat improvement and effects on fish populations. We are building these models to help inform estimates of the economic value of salmon recovery (see talk by Papenfus et al., this session). . We discuss model dynamics that can lead to counterintuitive responses of fish populations to habitat modifications and water quality improvements. Exploring these multifaceted dynamics through assemblage modeling can prove useful for understanding when and where conservation actions may or may not provide the greatest ecological benefits. Additionally, we briefly discuss the challenges and trade-offs associated with implementing ecological complexity in fish-habitat models and conclude with considerations for future integration of fish population models with economic analyses.