Adult spawners: A critical period for subarctic Chinook salmon in a changing climate

Concurrent, distribution-wide abundance declines of some Pacific salmon species, including Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), highlights the need to understand how vulnerability at different life stages to climate stressors affects population dynamics and fisheries sustainability. Yukon River Chinook salmon stocks are among the largest subarctic populations, near the northernmost extent of the species range. Existing research suggests that Yukon River Chinook salmon population dynamics are largely driven by factors occurring between the adult spawner life stage and their offspring's first summer at sea (second year post-hatching). However, specific mechanisms sustaining chronic poor productivity are unknown, and there is a tremendous sense of urgency to understand causes, as declines of these stocks have taken a serious toll on commercial, recreational, and indigenous subsistence fisheries. Therefore, we leveraged multiple existing datasets spanning parent and juvenile stages of life history in freshwater and marine habitats. We analyzed environmental data in association with the production of offspring that survive to the marine juvenile stage (juveniles per spawner). These analyses suggest more than 45% of the variability in the production of juvenile Chinook salmon is associated with river temperatures or water discharge levels during the parent spawning migration. Over the past two decades, parents that experienced warmer water temperatures and lower discharge in the mainstem Yukon River produced fewer juveniles per spawning adult. We propose the adult spawner life stage as a critical period regulating population dynamics. We also propose a conceptual model that can explain associations between population dynamics and climate stressors using independent data focused on marine nutrition and freshwater heat stress. It is sobering to consider that some of the northernmost Pacific salmon habitats may already be unfavorable to these cold-water species. Our findings have immediate implications, given the common assumption that northern ranges of Pacific salmon offer refugia from climate stressors.