WTT Blog - Tagged with science communication

Freshwater scientists have been studying the phenomenon of “hydropeaking”, the artificial variation in flow below hydropower plants, for around 25 years. One particular aspect has been the harmful effects of flows, fluctuating in some cases on an hourly basis, upon salmonid fish species. In response to the growing awareness of the need to reduce the impacts of hydropeaking, a team of freshwater ecologists and engineers recently published a timely review article. One of the authors, Daniel Hayes (a PhD candidate at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna) tells us a little more about the issue.

Hopefully a few sea trout have found a bit of water (not round here mind) and are starting to return to our rivers at the moment. Fitting then to hand over the blog to Angus Lothian, a PhD student at Durham University (see his first blog here) to reflect on a new network for sea trout research.

Salmo trutta is a truly fascinating ‘species’, with such varying life history strategies and showing large phenotypic plasticity, exemplified by their key characteristic of partial-migration.  It is not yet fully known what drives partial-migration, with a component of a population of trout smolting and emigrating from rivers to sea, and the rest remaining river-resident.  Although the trout has often played second fiddle to Atlantic salmon, recent surges in the interest of trout ecology and biology, and in particular sea trout, has led to a rise in the number of scientists and PhD students researching this field.

Quite a few of our guest bloggers recently have been at the same conference. Unfortunately, I could only follow the key scientific revelations via Twitter from afar but I have been alerted to some work of which I was previously unaware, so I am hoping to establish contact with those people and perhaps they will contribute a blog or two in the near future. Here, Jess Marsh (she of the water crowfoot and salmonid community research) has kindly offered to tell us briefly about NoWPas.

A week after the 14th annual NoWPaS workshop was wrapped up in spectacular style with a traditional Finnish nuotio, or campfire, we are reflecting on an inspiring week of exciting salmonid research, new experiences and friendships.

NoWPaS 2018 participants at Oulanka Research Station, Finland. Photo taken by Angus Lothian