Getting a complete picture: An Integrated Approach to Aquatic Ecosystem Science in Wyoming’s Headwaters – part 2

Chuck Williams: "I'm a graduate student with WyACT and have been here a little under a year. I’m interested in how temperature and flow can affect habitats within the Snake River and how that might have implications for fisheries and recreation in the Jackson, Wyoming area.

Temperature and flow are important for both fisheries and aquatic ecosystems and subsequently for the associated recreational opportunities they present. With less flow, we might lose habitat for cutthroat trout and other aquatic species Higher flows may result in improved access to suitable habitat and food resources for fish, leading to improved fisheries. High flows can also cause dangerous situations for recreational floaters in extreme cases.

Fish have thermal tolerances. If those are exceeded, it can affect their metabolism and their feeding behavior. It could reduce their catchability, limiting angler success. Higher temperatures also open up the doors for warm water specialist species to invade additional habitats and compete with native species in these areas. The Snake River and its tributaries currently offer suitable thermal habitat to sustain a cutthroat trout fishery.  Our research group is interested in understanding what impact future change scenarios may have on thermal habitat and flow in the Snake River basin.

Localized seasonal variations and dam releases interact with geographically distinct landscape characteristics such as geomorphology and tributary inputs to generate unique spatial and temporal patterns in mainstem river temperatures and flow. Temperature and flow monitoring of the tributaries will give us important baseline data. We can track change over time and allow managers to make informed decisions for the Upper Snake watershed.

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Different types of data collection

Using our future scenarios, climate projections and management, we can model temperature and flow data to try to predict what will happen to fisheries and aquatic ecosystems on the Snake River and to recreational opportunities.

To do this, we have set up several ways to collect data. 

• Our stream temperature network currently has 30 temperature loggers spread throughout the Upper Snake River basin on both groundwater and snowmelt runoff streams. They have been in place since 2018, giving us six years of data. We used them to create a stream temperature model of the tributaries, as well as for some juvenile cutthroat trout growth rate work. We hope to add more temperature loggers to the mainstem Snake River to increase our understanding of mainstem temperatures.
• We are collecting flow measurements at four tributary sites: two groundwater sites and two snowmelt runoff streams.
• We are installing game cameras to collect timelapse photos of these sites. They are used to create a continuous measurement of relative discharge and collect qualitative information on how each site may be changing. This flow data will be important for our temperature and flow models in the future.
• We are also using the FLAMe (Fast Limnological Automated Measurements) system on the river. [for more on FLAMe, see part 1 of this blog post] We are monitoring a 25-mile stretch of Snake River from Jackson Lake dam to Moose Landing, focusing our temperature monitoring on tributaries and groundwater inputs.