A new study finds that California’s most endangered salmon population, the Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon, is highly sensitive to water temperatures during the early stages of juvenile salmon development. Researchers from UC Davis, NOAA Fisheries, UC Santa Cruz, and the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research undertook this work with researchers from the UCLA Ion Microprobe Laboratory in EPSS, measuring oxygen isotopes in salmon earbones (“otoliths”), which revealed water temperatures during various developmental stages. The paper was published in Science Advances.
Read the NOAA Fisheries feature story: A Secret to Survival for California’s Most Endangered Salmon
Read the paper in Science Advances: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aeg3586