{"id":16674,"date":"2020-02-12T12:39:41","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T12:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/?p=16674"},"modified":"2025-02-13T11:35:19","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T19:35:19","slug":"arctic-grayling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/news\/2020\/02\/12\/arctic-grayling","title":{"rendered":"One-lake wonders facing climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Upper Granite Lake. Courtesy of Roger Tabor, US Fish & Wildlife Service<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Douglas Esser
\n足彩app哪个是正规的re is one lake in Washington where Arctic grayling survive \u2014 for now, says Jeff Jensen<\/a>, an ichthyologist and senior lecturer at the University of Washington Bothell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A freshwater member of the salmon family, Arctic grayling were planted by state fisheries workers in the late 1940s in a few North Cascades lakes to give anglers an exotic catch, without having to travel to Alaska. 足彩app哪个是正规的 trout-size fish were able to reproduce in only one small, clear stream that flows into Upper Granite Lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fed by a melting snow field, the stream is not very deep and almost narrow enough to jump across.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c足彩app哪个是正规的re’s not a lot of spawning habitat to begin with,\u201d Jensen said. \u201cIt\u2019s a textbook case of a population that might be imperiled by changes of climate. As the snowpack gets lower and lower and temperatures get higher, that stream is going to be more and more depleted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building on the baseline<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Arctic grayling. Roger Tabor, USFWS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

David A. Beauchamp studied the Upper Granite Lake grayling in the 1980s when he was a graduate student and teaching assistant at the University of Washington, and Jensen was an undergraduate. Beauchamp became a UW professor and is now with the U.S. Geological Survey at the Western Fisheries Research Center in Seattle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beauchamp said he\u2019s excited that Jensen is following up on his baseline research to discover whether the snowpack lasts long enough to support the fish hatching and migrating to the lake. \u201cBy following the population over multiple years, he can determine whether reproduction is successful every year, or does it fail in some warmer years with lower snowpack,\u201d Beauchamp said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted to follow up on that study because of the climate angle,\u201d said Jensen, who visited the lake once with Beauchamp when it was frozen over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere is a population of fish that depends on snowmelt for their spawning, and it was really well studied in the \u201980s. Since that time there’s been a lot of changes in climate, a lot of impact on snowpack and presumably a lot of impact on the spawning capacity for that stream,\u201d Jensen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan we see the signature of climate change and how that population is doing, given the changes that have happened?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An arduous hike<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Prieuer Pretorius, left, and Jeff Jensen holding a device with propeller to measure stream flow.
Marc Studer photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jensen made two trips last summer with one of his students, Prieuer Pretorius, a senior majoring in Biology in the School of STEM<\/a>. 足彩app哪个是正规的y plan to return this summer for more research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

足彩app哪个是正规的 lake is about six miles off Highway 20 near Marblemount, but getting there is an all-day hike up an abandoned logging road and then trekking without an established trail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On their first trip last summer, it rained nearly continuously, and they were soaked the entire time, Jensen said. 足彩app哪个是正规的y also didn\u2019t know exactly where they were going, and at one point, they had to cross a stream on a fallen log.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When they finally reached the lake, Jensen was happy to see Arctic grayling, staging at the mouth of the stream. \u201c足彩app哪个是正规的y could still spawn, sustain themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

足彩app哪个是正规的 second hike a few weeks later went faster, and they were accompanied by Roger Tabor, a biologist with the Fish & Wildlife Service. This time, they saw fish in a lower section of the stream spawning in the gravel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jensen is recruiting more students to return to Upper Granite Lake this summer for more research. \u201cI’m always interested in getting students out into the field and doing biology that connects people with the environment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adventures in research<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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