HR: 10:45h
AN: B42A-02    [Abstracts]
TI: Assessing the Relative Roles of Environmental Factors on Population Scaling: An Example with Chinook Salmon
AU: * Isaak, D
EM: disaak@fs.fed.us
AF: University of Idaho, Ecohydraulics Research Group College of Engineering 322 E. Front St., Suite 340, Boise, ID 83702 United States
AU: Thurow, R
EM: rthurow@fs.fed.us
AF: US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station Boise Forest Sciences Laboratory 322 E. Front St., Suite 401, Boise, ID 83702 United States
AU: NeVille, H
EM: hneville@unr.nevada.edu
AF: University of Nevada--Reno, Department of Biology, 314, Reno, NV 89577 United States
AU: Rieman, B
EM: brieman@fs.fed.us
AF: US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station Boise Forest Sciences Laboratory 322 E. Front St., Suite 401, Boise, ID 83702 United States
AB: To effectively manage and conserve a growing list of dwindling species requires understanding the geographic scales at which populations are structured and discerning the environmental characteristics that affect population structure. Spatially referenced datasets, fine-scale genetic studies, and spatial autocorrelation analyses are now yielding insights to key population parameters such as dispersal and genetic neighborhood size, but determination of environmental correlates has lagged behind for many species. We present a simple framework for ascertaining the importance of environmental features on these population attributes. The basis of the approach consists of comparing spatial signatures for population parameters to signatures derived for a host of environmental features across a gradient of landscape types. The expectation was that biological attributes would track changes in the most important environmetal characterists. We illustrate the approach by constructing spatial correlograms for genetic and demographic data from Chinook salmon and comparing these to correlograms derived for several stream network features. Comparisons were made between two landscapes that differed with regards to disturbance and patchiness of spawning environments. Shortcomings to the proposed framework exist, but it does provide a first step towards identifying environmental factors which constrain important population parameters.
DE: 1625 Geomorphology and weathering (1824, 1886)
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly