A Modern Ghost Story: Increased Selective Mortality of Salmon Under Climate Extremes

Abstract

Hydroclimate volatility poses a growing threat to species' persistence, particularly when combined with widespread habitat loss and other stressors. Although the negative impacts of drought on aquatic species are well documented, wet conditions are generally assumed to enhance recruitment of migratory species during freshwater life stages. Life‐history theory predicts that species with multiple migratory strategies should be more resilient to climate extremes by spreading risk across time and space. Testing these assumptions requires tracking both survivors and ‘ghosts’ across life stages and broad spatial scales. For many Pacific salmonids, a substantial fraction of the population disperses downstream soon after emergence (‘early migrants’), rearing in downstream habitats before entering the ocean. The extent to which hydroclimatic conditions influence selection against this phenotype and its lifetime success is poorly understood. To address this data gap, we tracked nine cohorts of Chinook salmon ( Oncorhynchus tshawytscha ) at sequential points through their life cycle, using otolith and eye lens isotopes to identify habitats and conditions associated with the highest losses of early migrants. Comparisons of juvenile ( n = 2197) and adult ( n = 3937) samples revealed large spatiotemporal variation in the strength of selective mortality. Early migrants became progressively rarer at each consecutive sampling point, including among adult returns, indicating carryover effects from freshwater into the ocean. At the southern edge of the species range—where water scarcity is an intensifying issue—we had predicted positive relationships between river flow, growth and survival. Instead, trends were consistently quadratic, suggesting that both drought and extreme high flows can reduce rearing opportunities and cohort strength. Ultimately, all phenotypes contributed to reproduction in all years, underscoring the importance of maintaining diverse life history portfolios and implementing climate‐ready restoration strategies that provide refugia and growth opportunities across the full spectrum of flow conditions.

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