Spawn timing

July 12, 2023

Overview

An analysis of NuSEDS data on spawn timing to estimate the distribution (mean and standard deviation) of spawn timing for Conservation Units (CU).

This information will be used in assessments of Climate Change Vulnerability of Pacific salmon CUs. Specifically, the spawn timing (start to end) of each CU will define the period over which exposure to stream temperature and low flow are calculated for the spawning life stage. The start of spawning also defines the end of the freshwater adult migration life stage and the beginning of the eggs/alevin life stage.

In addition to informing Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments, summaries of spawn timing by location (see code/start-end-data-summaries and output/life-cycle-timing_byLocation.csv) are reported by Wilson and Peacock in a study of life-history timing of Pacific salmon and factors affecting timing.

Files

• code contains R code to fit CU-level model to raw NuSEDS spawn timing data and run simple summaries of data.
• data is mostly empty (data files too large for GitHub) but contains links to NuSEDS database. Email contact below to acquire raw data.
• output contains resulting estimates of spawn timing by species and location, CU, and region.

Acknowledgements

PSF's Climate Science Advisory Committee and Population Science Advisory Committee provided feedback on these analyses. Samantha Wilson provided input on the analysis and interpretation of data.

More information

Contact: Steph Peacock (speacock at psf dot ca)