Climate Change Effect on Local Fish Populations - Lukas Chyla

Project Summary

Global warming and the Greenhouse effect have both been prominent factors in the death and or movement of many species within different ecosystems and the Hudson River is one of them. The Hudson River is home to many different species of aquatic organisms including the eel and striped bass. In this study, the eel, which is catadromous, and the striped bass, which is anadromous, were observed over a two-decade time frame to see how the changes in water temperature affected the populations.

From the year 2003-2020 the Eel population decreased as well as the Striped Bass population. The water temperature over the course of these 2 decades also decreased in the Hudson. Although this is not the trend that most people would imagine when it comes to temperature change it was still very interesting to see the population of both species decrease regardless. Future studies will contain new locations and area of study to re test my hypothesis.