Great Smoky Mountains National Park- Forecasting Climate Change Vulnerability for Fish Diversity in Southern Appalachia

The overall purpose of this study is to forecast the effects of climate change on stream-dwelling fishes of southern Appalachia (see attached proposal). This research includes two specific research activities: (1) monitoring of stream temperatures throughout southern Appalachia to model and map present-day and future stream temperatures regimes, and (2) laboratory experimentation to characterize thermal physiology and behavior of minnows and darters. The specific purpose of this permit application pertains to the first of the two activities listed above and is to monitor water temperatures in streams draining the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP). Monitoring at six sites within GSMNP will coincide with analogous monitoring at 154 additional sites distributed among eight other stream networks draining the Blue Ridge, Cumberland Plateau, and Interior Plateau ecoregions. This arrangement of temperature monitoring sites spans gradients of elevation, network position (i.e., stream size), and anthropogenic land cover. Streams draining GSMNP represent an important component of this study design because they provide the highest elevation and least-disturbed land cover in southern Appalachia. Inclusion of sites along the entirety of these ecologically-relevant environmental gradients in essential to understand how they affect stream temperature regimes and produce accurate statistical models and GIS maps of stream temperature. The complete temperature database, representing five years of daily temperature data from 160 sites, will be used for two purposes. First, air temperature and GIS-derived landscape characteristics will be used to statistically model and map stream temperature regime metrics (e.g., summer maximum, winter minimum, growing degree-days, etc.). These maps will, in turn, be used to quantify thermal habitat use and associated thermal physiology and behavior of minnows and darters (i.e., pertaining to the second research activity listed above). Second, stream temperature lapse rates along gradients of elevation and stream size will be used in conjunction with estimates of air temperature increase over the next century to estimate the velocity of climate change (i.e., the rate at which isotherms shift upstream and upslope). GIS mapping of these isotherm shift rates will provide natural resources managers with information about the rate of habitat change under scenarios of climate change, the efficacy of present-day conservation corridors, and the locations where habitat protection will needed under future climate scenarios.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park- Forecasting Climate Change Vulnerability for Fish Diversity in Southern Appalachia

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