Department Fish Ecology and Evolution

Climate change and fish movement patterns

During the last century, Switzerland has drastically modified its rivers for electricity production and flood prevention. This has led to habitat fragmentation and disruption of fish migration. Consequently, species such as salmon and sturgeon that migrate between freshwaters and the ocean have gone extinct. Barriers in the rivers are also a major challenge to species moving between different freshwater habitats during their lives. Cold-water species are further facing severe negative effects by rising temperatures. To balance energy production and fish movement under a changing climate, knowledge about timing, routes and accessibility to cold-water refugia of different riverine fish species is needed.

In this project, we build an acoustic receiver network in the Rhine-Aare River network. We tag and track several, including some of the most endangered fish species for several years under changing environmental conditions like rising temperatures. This project will thereby create needed knowledge on large-scale migration patterns to aid the decision-making regarding hydropower mitigation. More, this project will identify species-specific ultimate barriers and accessibility to cold-water refugia during heat waves.

The hydrophone network will remain open to different stakeholders. The telemetry network will further be part of the European Tracking Network enabling tracking across borders.

Funding

Collaboration

Contact

Jakob Brodersen
team leader
Tel. +41 58 765 22 04
E-mail senden

Jelger Elings
research postdoc
Tel. +41 58 765 21 39
E-mail senden

Luis Philipp Habersetzer
PhD student
Tel. +41 58 765 22 58
E-mail senden

Maja Bosnjakovic
PhD student
Tel. +41 58 765 21 99
E-mail senden
Sara Süess
scientific assistant
Tel. +41 58 765 22 84
E-mail senden
Nadja Christen
field operations manager
Tel. +41 58 765 21 42
E-mail senden

Jappe Rempe
internship
Tel. +41 58 765 21 94
E-mail senden

 

June 2024: The 'Wasseragenda21' has given us the opportunity to present our project in this webinar on its renaturation platform.
March 2024: The Rhine-Aare River Fish Movement Project has started: the team is complete and goals for the next four years are set!
Find more information in this Linkedin post: