Detecting the effects of management regime shifts in dynamic environments using multi-population state-space models

Detecting the effectiveness of management actions intended to increase the abundance of threatened or exploited species can help resolve uncertainties about cost-effective management tactics. However, the complexity of ecological systems can make it difficult to identify important factors causing change in population abundance. This difficulty extends from detecting naturally-caused ecosystem regime shifts to management-induced regime shifts and the attendant change in population dynamics parameters. The adult abundance of naturally-produced coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) on the Oregon Coast generally declined until these fish were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1998. The subsequent rebuilding of Oregon coastal coho adult abundance is coincident with increased habitat restoration, reduced hatchery production, and reduced harvest. Importantly, ocean survival also improved, thereby complicating the assessment of management effectiveness at the adult life stage. Our objective was to assess change in the freshwater production of juveniles (smolts) through time in order to determine if recent increases in adult abundance could be related to management affecting the freshwater juvenile production. We combined 46 years of data associated with 18 populations of Oregon coastal coho. Spawner-to-smolt relationships were modeled with Bayesian hierarchical state-space implementations of the logistic hockey stick recruitment function. We also develop a method of estimating the relative reproductive success of hatchery spawners. We found more evidence for decline than increase in productivity in the spawner-to-smolt life stage, suggesting that changes in physical oceanographic conditions are responsible for recent increases in adult abundance. The reproductive success of hatchery-origin fish relative to natural-origin fish was 0.51 with a 95% credible interval from 0.19 to 0.89. While some management effects may unfold on longer time-scales than we observed, we nonetheless contend that carefully tailored models of non-stationary population dynamics are needed to understand and the effectiveness of management actions intended to recover populations.