Digital Commons Network^™

Assessing The Variability In Length Of Juvenile Atlantic Salmon In Maine Streams Through A Long-Term Electrofishing Dataset, Athena Marie Ryan

Master's Theses and Capstones

Atlantic salmon Salmo salar are an endangered migratory fish with recovery projects in their last remaining habitats in Maine focused on juvenile stocking and habitat restoration efforts. Population productivity of Atlantic salmon has been linked to size of juveniles, suggesting that conditions that facilitate growth in stream habitats are important to recovery. Broadly, the objectives of my thesis were to examine how different habitat and biological variables affect the size of juvenile parr throughout Maine and to assess long-term trends (1969 – 2017) among four drainages (East Machias, Narraguagus, Sheepscot, and Penobscot). Extensive electrofishing surveys captured ~250,000 individual Atlantic salmon …