Symposium Summary: Conserving Cool- and Cold-Water Lake and Stream Fishes through a Warmer 21st Century: Science, Management, and Policy Needs

This symposium brought together 36 presentations and 7 posters from a wide range of aquatic ecosystems to highlight the basic building blocks required for successful adaptation to climate change in order to conserve cool- and cold-water fishes. Science needs for adaption include high-quality, high-resolution, temperature data under both past and future climate conditions, as well as information linking water temperature to individual physiology, population dynamics, and community interactions of fishes. A common theme of presentations in this area was spatial heterogeneity in observed and predicted impacts of climate change on aquatic ecosystems, demonstrating the resilience of certain locations and communities to climate change. These results highlighted management and policy needs for successful adaptation, including strategies for prioritizing resource investments to be most cost-effective, and methods for implementing such strategies across socio-political boundaries. Several presentations described case-studies of existing adaptation efforts, but considerably more on-the-ground conservation will be needed to manage for climate change in the very near future. Keynote speakers Peter Moyle and Ian Winfield summarized their decades of work conserving cool- and cold-water fish species in California and the United Kingdom, respectively, again highlighting excellent science and the need for coordinated policies and conservation planning. — Gretchen Hansen, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, [email protected] Read the symposium abstracts here.