Jessie M. Bierman Professor of Ecology, Director Flathead Lake Biological Station, University of Montana
Working with the Wild Salmon Center (www.wildsalmoncenter.org) and colleagues at Moscow State University, I direct research in Kamchatka, Russian Federation, with a primary focus on variation in salmon life traits in relation to the “shifting habitat mosaic” of river ecosystems. We use a suite of biophysical metrics to compare and contrast habitat dynamics in Russian and North American salmon rivers. In the Kol River, a 300 km floodplain river with mountain headwaters, some 5 million salmon return annually, thereby fertilizing the ecosystem. This legacy of salmon decomposition drives high productivity of riparian vegetation and associated herbivores. Salmon habitat is determined by complex interactions between channel avulsion, import of nutrients from returning salmon and riparian plant growth. Juvenile salmon prefer shallow water habitats (>5 fish per m2; 5 species co-existing) in the riparian fringe where terrestrial arthropods provide a primary food source. In contrast, the Utkholok River is a meandering, brown-water river draining the tundra-dominated area of the coastal plains. Here amphipods are strong interactors in the aquatic community, functioning as salmon carcass decomposers and a major food source for juvenile salmon. Large female amphipods, carrying young in brood pouches, migrate kilometers upstream from the estuary and lower river in the spring, ensuring high densities of juvenile scuds when spawning salmon arrive in the summer months. These examples of linkages between salmon and other river biota underscore the complexities or ecotypic variation in these river systems. We have documented 5 life history types of rainbow/steelhead in the Kamchatka rivers, apparently determined by responses to variable habitats. Several of the salmon species also display similar ecotypic variation. We use remote sensing tools to document salmon habitat quantity and quality in the context of the shifting habitat mosaic (see the River Typology Project on the FLBS web site). Our science underpins salmon conservation strategies that include creation of protected watersheds for salmon and economic incentives for reducing poaching of salmon and steelhead.
Jack Stanford is the Jessie M. Bierman Professor of Ecology and Director of the Flathead Lake Biological Station at The University of Montana, where he has worked since 1971. He is most noted for his long-term studies of the 22,000 square kilometer Flathead River-Lake ecosystem between Montana and British Columbia, and in 2004, received the Award of Excellence from the North American Benthological Society. In keeping with his research on the ecology and conservation of rivers and salmonid fishes, Jack began an extensive project in 1999 on a suite of salmon rivers in Alaska, British Columbia and Kamchatka, Russia to look at the effects of marine nutrient subsidies on the ecology of floodplains. Jack has served on many national and international science review panels and editorial boards, and currently is a board member of the Wild Salmon Center in Oregon. Jack received his PhD from the University of Utah (1975) and has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and books in limnology and ecology.
Chivers, C.J. 2006. Salmon find an ally in athe Far East of Russia. New York Times, NY. 15 Oct 2006.