Fish-MER

To understand the population dynamics of species, scientists and managers require knowledge of how key processes such as recruitment, mortality and migration are influenced by drivers such as temperature, connectivity and river flows. For many Australian freshwater fish species, this knowledge is often limited to specific aspects of biology or a specific process, with studies which take a holistic approach in considering potential population drivers being rare. This limits our ability to effectively manage fish populations or develop strategies that optimise the ecological benefits of rehabilitation activities such as environmental flow delivery. In recent years, researchers have increasingly addressed such shortfalls, culminating in monitoring and research programs that capture multiple data types and evaluation approaches. This talk presents an overview of how the Fish Theme of the FLOW-MER program is progressing this understanding of the processes that drive the patterns we observe in native fish populations and integrating this information in a predictive context. Moreover, we present a recent example of how this information has been set in an applied management setting, demonstrating strong collaborations between individual researchers, agencies, and environmental water delivery teams.

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