Life Sciences Commons^™

Habitat-Mediated Foraging Limitations Drive Survival Bottlenecks For Juvenile Salmon, Brian P. Kennedy, Keith H. Nislow, Carol L. Folt

Dartmouth Scholarship

Realistic population models and effective conservation strategies require a thorough understanding of mechanisms driving stage-specific mortality. Mortality bottlenecks for many species occur in the juvenile stage and are thought to result from limitation on food or foraging habitat during a "critical period" for growth and survival. Without a way to account for maternal effects or to measure integrated consumption rates in the field, it has been virtually impossible to test these relationships directly. Hence uncertainties about mechanisms underlying such bottlenecks remain. In this study we randomize maternal effects across sites and apply a new method for measuring consumption integrated over …