WTT Blog

Anyone who knows anything about fish in the UK will surely know Dr Martyn Lucas, the head of the Aquatic Animal Ecology Research Group within the School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Durham University. He’s an absolute legend and all round good bloke with whom I have done some research in the past. From amongst the many projects he is involved with, his group has published two papers this year revolving around fish passage issues. The first was led by Mike Forty (supported by the Catchment Restoration Fund, CRF) who wrote a layman’s version for us in Salmo and whom I have written about before on the WTT blog pages. Below is a quick summary by Martyn, reproduced with his permission, regarding the second output which included brown trout and bullhead as the study species.  

Jeroen Tummer’s paper concerns longitudinal connectivity restoration for stream fish communities, particularly in terms of the use of ‘nature-like’ passage solutions and obstacle removal, and the utility of a more holistic approach for evaluating outcomes. One of the key findings of our study is that quantitative fish surveys don't do a very good job in telling us whether connectivity restoration work for stream fishes has worked or not in the short term! There are much better ways of doing this as illustrated in the paper. However, they do provide valuable, contextual evidence about changes in the fish community towards or away from the restoration objectives, including those in the longer term (so long as standardised monitoring at a regular frequency is continued).

Connectivity is a recurrent theme of my blog posts. Last year I wrote about plans for notching some of the redundant low mill weirs on a tributary of the River Aire, local to me. Those plans will come to fruition in the next few weeks as Pete Turner (Environment Agency) and I have had our bespoke environmental permit consented to progress the works, so I’ll report back to show you how the channel is evolving. I also wrote about making connections and how Mike Forty’s PhD research with Ribble Rivers Trust had thrown up some really interesting results, especially regarding the importance of free movement for precocious parr; the published work is available here.

To communicate the worth of habitat restoration work (in supporting the Ecosystem Service approach & Natural Capital principles) to the wider public and to potential future funders, and thus maintain, increase and maximise the potential impact, there is an urgent need for some simple and accessible assessments that a broad audience can appreciate. I have proposed to use the concept of the food web in this context because: a) the knock-on effects of habitat degradation translate into food web alterations very quickly; and b) the food web is recognised by a broad swathe of society (and from a very early age). Hence, measures of food webs can be used as an engagement & educational tool that will increase the understanding and value of restoration projects, as well as a tangible and effective measure for funding applications.

After the winter spates and ‘unprecedented’ flows rearranged much of the substrate of my local river, the Aire in N Yorkshire, there has been virtually no rain since. Consequently, it is already at late summer level, and the lack of energy has allowed thick scums of bacteria and other microbes to develop on the bed. The lethargy of some of the trout seems to reflect that of the river. And the forecast is for a hot summer, allegedly.

This leads me to my monthly scan of the literature for research involving brown trout, which has thrown up two recent papers assessing impacts of climate change via modelling. The first was a study of trout populations from two streams on the Iberian Peninsula, where trout are at the edge of their natural distribution. Ben Tyser reported for WTT on earlier work in this region – see the WTT Library (Articles by topic) page on Climate Change: Iberian trout threatened by climate change.

April was a quiet month for me as my academic commitments stole the lion’s share. But I can’t believe we are already at the end of May! May is probably my favourite month…. here in North Yorkshire, the ramsons and bluebells are in full swing and the beech buds burst to dapple them in shade and provide such a vibrant, fresh green for a week or so. And then there are mayflies of course but that’s another story.

Mike is the WTT Conservation Officer for the South and West. 

At this time of year, there is often a hectic dash to get money spent before the end of the financial year and get trees pollarded/coppiced/hinged before the start of the bird nesting season. March 2016 was no exception and my very understanding wife allowed me to work through three weekend days and a bank holiday to fit it all in.