Aislinn Borland Represents the MSA at Highly Regarded International Salmon Researchers Event, NoWPaS
Aislinn Borland, a PhD student at Strathclyde University whose studies are supported in part by a partnership between the Missing Salmon Alliance, The Fishmongers Company and Marine Scotland Science recently attended the highly regarded international salmon researchers workshop event, NoWPaS (2022 Meeting – NoWPaS).
NoWPaS is an international workshop on anadromous salmonid research for PhDs and post-doctoral fellows. It aims to build a network of early stage researchers, allowing for collaboration and knowledge transfer. This year, NowPaS was hosted in France by INRAE and ECOBIOP and was attended by approximately 30 early career researchers.
At the event, Aislinn Borland presented her plans for her PhD in France, outlining her work modelling the migration of Atlantic salmon from UK and Irish rivers. The work aims to better the understanding of the migratory paths taken by salmon during their first few months at sea, a time where mortality rates are high but little is known about the cause of these high rates.
Borland attended the event in person to present and discuss the background and importance of her work, abstracted here below.
On the edge of the abyss: Mathematical modelling of Atlantic salmon marine migration
Recent declines in Atlantic salmon populations are largely attributed to decreasing marine survival rates. Survival probability of post-smolts during the months following marine entry is hypothesised as being low and variable, dependent upon body size and individual conditions experienced. Improving predictions of the migration pathways taken by post-smolts during this period could assist in characterising the local conditions experienced, helping to forecast fluctuations in marine survival. This project takes a modelling approach, with high specificity in its spatial and temporal scales, to challenge and develop current understanding of migratory routes of post-smolts from selected UK rivers during their first three months at sea.
A Lagrangian particle tracking model will be developed to consider the movement of post-smolts from their point of sea entry to their convergence at an oceanographic feature on the continental shelf edge (Wyville Thomson Ridge) and subsequent potential path divergence. The model will use a high-resolution ocean model (Scottish Shelf Waters Reanalysis Service, SSW-RS) and will be run for each year of the 26-year SSW-RS period. It will consider multiple hypothesised swim behaviours of post-smolts including current following, directed swimming, and temperature or salinity gradient following behaviours. The plausibility and biological realism of these swim behaviours will be analysed, and the temporal variation of migratory routes will also be considered in relation to varying oceanographic conditions. These results will allow for a better understanding of the initial migration of Atlantic salmon from UK rivers, contributing to cooperative efforts in addressing research needs and informing conservation actions.
Aislinn Borland said, ‘It was a great experience - I really enjoyed communicating my work to new people and hearing their thoughts on it. I think that sharing knowledge across different aspects of salmonid research is very important, and it was great to see how research areas that seem very different can actually be very closely linked. The workshop was also a brilliant opportunity to form connections with other researchers - it's great that we have a network of salmonid researchers and we can easily collaborate and help each other out in future!’
As an Alliance of six organisations, we will build on the existing work of our partners and maximise our impact by taking a coordinated approach and vital action in order to halt and reverse the decline of wild Atlantic salmon.
The goal of the Missing Salmon Alliance is to build an evidence-base to influence national and international decision-makers to regulate activities that adversely impact wild Atlantic salmon.
The Missing Salmon Alliance
The MSA is comprised of the following members:
Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, Atlantic Salmon Trust, the Angling Trust with Fish Legal, The Rivers Trust and Fisheries Management Scotland.
https://www.missingsalmonalliance.org