Conservation Planning for Fishes in the Upper Colorado River Basin

Julian Olden (Univ. of WA) 

Grdauate students and post docs (TBD)

 1.      Determine availability of existing published and unpublished data on the fish distributions and related habitat variables for the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB).

2.      Document current land use, stewardship layers, geology, and other landscape-level habitat information for the UCRB.

3.      Develop a classification hierarchy for aquatic habitats to provide an ecological basis for determining conservation areas

4.      Identify landscape-level habitat metrics associated with native and non native fish presence in the UCRB.

5.      Identify areas of high native fish biodiversity and the habitats associated with those areas for conservation efforts.

6.      Classify landscape-level threats to aquatic biota in the UCRB.

7.      Link fish distribution maps, landcover, stewardship, and other layers deemed useful by the stakeholders for the upper and lower Colorado River basins to create seamless layers for the Colorado River Basin.