Fully Funded PhD - River Migration Constraints in Atlantic salmon

The Atlantic salmon Salmo salar, makes long distance migrations as part of its life cycle, switching between very different habitat types.

Previous research has shown that seaward migration of the juveniles carries very significant cost, with some habitat types resulting in higher mortality than others.

Some potential costs of migration are anthropogenic and as such are relatively new costs for salmon.

This project will use acoustic telemetry to quantify a number of habitat specific metrics and costs around sea migration in salmon in a study system in the River Derwent in the English Lake District.

Salmon smolts will be trapped in the different parts of the headwaters, tagged with an acoustic tag and tracked using receivers at key positions throughout the river catchment and out to sea.

This project will benefit from an existing project, SeaMonitor, that will have receiver array extending from the north coast of Ireland to Scotland allowing marine migration direction and mortality rate to be quantified.

One output of this work will be a conservation plan for management of Atlantic salmon migration in the Derwent catchment.

This project will address a number of key questions related to natural and anthropogenic impacts on seaward migration in Atlantic salmon.

These include:

Can the costs of sea migration be quantified?
What are the habitat specific costs of migration?
What is the impact of standing waters in a catchment on migration success?
Do low head weirs increase the costs of migration success? If so by how much?
Does water abstraction influence the choice of migration direction?
Do anthropogenic harbour activities alter the pattern of migration?