January 25, 2019
Participants:
Erin McCreless, Ben Geske, Chris Kwan, Emanuel Rodriguez, JD Wikert, Kenneth Kundargi, Scott Hamilton, You Chen Chao, Shawn Acuna, Denise Reed, Duane Linander, Felipe La Luz, Jason Peltier, Darcy Austin, Corey Phillis, Mike Urkov, Brad Cavallo, Angela, Shelia Green, Mike Beakes, Sam Luoma, Maggie Christman, Bruce Digennaro, Mike Eakin
Scheduling
Next conference call: Friday Feb. 8, 9-11am
Next in-person workshop: Friday Feb. 22, 8:30am-4pm
CalSim/DSM2 update – Model inputs - Emanuel
Emanuel updated the group on the CalSim and DSM2 model outputs that will be used as inputs to the Delta smelt and chinook salmon models. See attached powerpoint for details and preliminary results.
Note, DSM2 does not include modeled temperatures. Emanuel will work with Chandra to find out the method that was used for modeling temperature in Cal WaterFix. We may also be able to simply run a regression of past water temperatures as a function of air temperature and flow, and use this to model temperatures for our scenarios. Could include air temperature increases to account for climate change, to be consistent with other parts of our models.
Delta smelt model preliminary results – Scott Hamilton
Scott described the modifications to the limiting factors model from Hamilton & Murphy (2018) and presented some preliminary results. The preliminary results are not yet ready for distribution to the group. The next step is to convene a meeting of the delta smelt subgroup to discuss the modeling approaches and outputs.
There was a discussion of whether density dependence is a limiting factor for delta smelt, and if so, how was it modeled? Scott explained that the model includes a starting population of delta smelt for each year and stressors that influence survival at each life stage, and then generates food in each season. Thus, food availability is one component of the model, and one of the goals of the model is to identify the level of food availability that removes food as a limiting factor.
The model also suggests that predation by silversides is important. This finding coincides with a study from Cramer that demonstrated high levels of predation by silversides.