Comment on Meisner (1990): Effect of climatic warming on the southern margins of the native range of brook trout, Salvelinus fontinalis

Abstract

Meisner (1990) proposed in the Journall that the lower elevational margin of brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis), in the southern part of their native range is related to the 15 degrees C groundwater isotherm, based on a modelled relationship between minimum elevations at which brook trout occur in this part of the native range and elevation, latitude, and groundwater temperature. Furthermore, he estimated minimum elevations for brook trout under the warming scenario of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) that projects a 3.8 degree C increase in mean annual temperature. He presented a crude map of the areas remaining available to brook trout as "potential habitat" under the GISS scenario, but was unable to provide details. He had selected from state inventories the site lowest in each drainage that had brook trout and consequently did not have the entire inventory data set available for the projection. According to Meisner (1990, fig, 3) the distribution of brook trout in North Carolina and Virginia under the GISS scenario would become relatively patchy, and trout would disappear altogether from Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia. I was able to apply Meisner’s (1990) model to the complete data sets from the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission (Bonner 1983) and Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (Mohn and Bugas 1980) and offer here results and some additional comments.

Citation

Flebbe, Patricia A. 1993. Comment on Meisner (1990): Effect of climatic warming on the southern margins of the native range of brook trout, Salvelinus fontinalis. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Vol. 50(4): 883 – 884