From FishBio:
Nearly any predator that can get its claws, beak, or teeth on a juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) will try to eat these young fish as they migrate to the ocean – and as salmon try to evade one hungry mouth, they may be vulnerable to getting eaten by another. Predation is a complex topic in part because the behavior of one predator may affect the activities of another, and these activities can also be influenced by factors like flow, temperature, and available habitat. Warming temperatures, which can alter predator consumption rates and the ability of prey to evade, may be particularly important to understand for Chinook salmon in California’s Central Valley, as this southernmost portion of the species’ range is already experiencing climate change-related impacts.
To test the hypothesis that warming temperatures may intensify the effects of the two most abundant non-native salmon predators – largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) and striped bass (Morone saxatilis) – on migrating Chinook smolts in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a recent effort synthesized data from multiple survival studies to develop simulation models (Nobriga et al. 2021).
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