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Person

Benjamin H Letcher

Research Ecologist
Eastern Ecological Science Center

Email: bletcher@usgs.gov
Office Phone: 413-863-3803
Fax: 413-863-9810
ORCID: 0000-0003-0191-5678

Location
Research Lab
One Migratory Way
P.O. Box 796
Turners Falls , MA 01376-0796
US

Supervisor: Forrest B Vanderbilt
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The USGS Water Mission Area (WMA) - Ecosystems Mission Area (EMA) EcoDrought project is comprised of interdisciplinary teams in five pilot regions across the country. The over-arching project goal is to measure streamflow in headwater streams and to relate flow variation to stream fish population dynamics. In the northeast, the New England Water Science Center (NewEngWSC) partnered with the fish ecology group at the S.O. Conte Anadromous Fish Research Lab (Conte), a part of the EMA’s Eastern Ecological Science Center. The Conte fish ecology team has been collecting ecological and stream water temperature data in the West Brook watershed located in Whately, Massachusetts, since 1997, where they developed novel methods...
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Understanding Brook Trout Persistence in Warming Streams
Cold-water adapted Brook Trout were historically widely distributed – ranging from northern Quebec to Georgia, and from the Atlantic Ocean to Manitoba in the north, and along the Appalachian ridge in the south. However, studies show that due to factors associated with climate change, such as increased stream temperature and changing water flow, the number of streams containing Brook Trout is declining. Although efforts have been made to protect and restore this cold-water fish at local levels, the extent that temperature increases will vary within and across different streams and the ability of Brook Trout to seek cold-water refugia or adapt to these increasing stream temperatures currently remains unclear. The...
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Spatial variability in adult brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) survival within two intensively surveyed headwater stream networks
Headwater stream networks are considered heterogeneous riverscapes, but it is challenging to characterize spatial variability in demographic rates. We estimated site-scale (50 m) survival of adult (>age 1+) brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) within two intensively surveyed headwater stream networks by applying an open-population N-mixture approach to count data collected over two consecutive summers. The estimated annual apparent survival rate was 0.37 (95% CI: 0.28-0.46) in one network and 0.31 (95% CI: 0.15-0.45) in the other network. In both networks, trout survival was higher in stream sites characterized by more abundant pool habitats. Trout survival was negatively associated with mean depth in one network...
Categories: Data, Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: Publication
Headwater stream ecosystems are vulnerable to numerous threats associated with climate and land use change. In the northeastern US, many headwater stream species (e.g., brook trout and stream salamanders) are of special conservation concern and may be vulnerable to climate change influences, such as changes in stream temperature and streamflow. Federal land management agencies (e.g., US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Department of Defense) are required to adopt policies that respond to climate change and may have longer-term institutional support to enforce such policies compared to state, local, non-governmental, or private land managers. However,...
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The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Water Mission Area (WMA) - Ecosystems Mission Area (EMA) EcoDrought project is comprised of interdisciplinary teams in five pilot regions across the country. The over-arching project goal is to measure streamflow in headwater streams and to relate flow variation to stream fish population dynamics. For the catchments located in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, the Virginia/West Virginia Science Center and the New England Water Science Center (NewEngWSC) partnered with the fish ecology group at Leetown Science Center, a part of the EMA’s Eastern Ecological Science Center, in order to establish gaging stations in headwater streams with ongoing ecological data collection and modeling...
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