Statisticians and Fisheries Scientists from RTR developed a state-space hierarchical Bayesian model to jointly estimate cause-specific mortality and survival of PIT-tagged juvenile salmonids across large spatial and temporal scales. The model incorporates recapture events of live fish and recoveries of tags from dead fish to generate more precise and accurate estimates of mortality and survival compared to traditional mark-recapture models. This methodical approach was recently published in the journal entitled Environmental and Ecological Statistics, with subsequent publications of results using this model in the Journal of Ecological Applications and Transactions of the American Fisheries Society.

Statisticians and Geospatial Analysts from RTR conducted a simulation study to determine if changes in river flows could be used to control the amount and quality of habitat used by aquatic annelid worms, a host species of myxozoan parasite found in salmonids in the Klamath River, USA. Simulations coupled a two-dimensional hydrodynamic model with a spatially explicit annelid habitat model to evaluate if desiccation events could be used to reduce annelid habitat and therefore reduce disease risks for salmonids. Results of this collaborative project between researchers from RTR, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Oregon State University were recently published in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management.