Lake Ontario, bloater (Coregonus hoyi) populations declined from the late 1800s-1900s and ultimately were extirpated from the lake by 1983 (Weidel et al. 2022). Few records exist to document critical habitats used by bloater before their extirpation (Goodyear et al....
Post Archive:
Restore
What physical conditions reduce Bloater embryo survival and development?
Conservation and restoration of Cisco (Coregonus artedi) and Bloater (C. hoyi) is ongoing across the Great Lakes (Bunnell et al. 2023). In Lake Ontario over 1,000,000 Bloater have been released from 2012 – 2020, with modest bottom trawl recaptures (n=24) and no...
Supporting cisco rearing science: evaluating the effects of rearing temperature and long-term OTC mark retention
Reintroduction of Cisco (Coregonus artedi) from the Les Cheneaux Island region into Saginaw Bay began in 2018, when 1.1 million fall fingerlings (mean size ~ 75 mm total length, TL) were stocked after being reared at Jordan River National Fish Hatchery (JRNFH). In...
Evaluating the effects of tank color and environmental complexity on cisco phenotypes, coloration, and epigenomics
Captive rearing is an important component of restoration efforts for declining fish populations, including coregonines such as cisco (Coregonus artedi) in the Great Lakes. However, captive rearing often leads to unintended fitness and phenotypic effects on salmonids....
Structured Decision Making for Lake Erie Cisco: Operationalizing the Coregonine Restoration Framework
This project proposes to undertake a Structured Decision Making (SDM) process to support Cisco restoration in the New York and Pennsylvania waters of Lake Erie, directly operationalizing the “Restore” phase of the Coregonine Restoration Framework (CRF; Figure 2 of...
Coregonine Captive Broodstock Developed from Wild-Caught Juveniles: Strategies to Increase Survival of Captured Juvenile Coregonines and Exploration of Long-Term Holding and Spawning
Coregonine restoration has largely relied on established hatchery broodstocks, human-facilitated spawning of ripe fish in the field, or leveraging commercial fisheries for gamete collection. These methods can induce unintended consequences such as hybridizations and...
Hatchery production and research to support restoration of sustainable Coregonine populations in Lake Ontario and Lake Erie – Year 8
Coregonine species in the Great Lakes, such as Cisco and Bloaters, historically represented a substantial component of the forage base for native cold-water fish like Lake Trout and Atlantic Salmon. Extirpation or depletion of deepwater Bloater populations has left...
Enhancing Kiyi (Coregonus kiyi) research to support the conservation and restoration of deep-water coregonine diversity in the Laurentian Great Lakes – Year 2
In FY22, we received one year of GLRI funding to explore the feasibility of making and rearing Kiyi or Kiyi-hybrid crosses for the establishment of research stocks at the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians (LTBB) Hatchery, Ann Arbor wet lab (AA), and...
Coregonine Captive Broodstock Developed from Wild-Caught Juveniles: Dual Strategies to Mitigate Barotrauma-Induced Mortality
The role of DNA methylation in morphological deformities in artificially reared cisco (Coregonus artedi)
We propose a pilot project to investigate the effects of artificial rearing on cisco DNA methylation. This project will build on an ongoing project funded in FY24 led by A. Honsey (“Effects of incubation temperature on survival, growth, morphology, and gene expression...
Impact of egg fatty acid signatures on embryo viability in wild and domesticated cisco
One of the major challenges in the aquaculture of bloater (Coregonus hoyi) and cisco (Coregonus artedi) is the low survival rate of larvae from hatchery-reared broodstock compared to wild broodstock. Percent eye-up of bloater eggs from parents fed different diets at...
Hatchery production and research to support restoration of sutainable Coregonine populations in Lake Ontario and Lake Erie – Year 7
Coregonine species in the Great Lakes, such as Cisco and Bloaters, historically represented a substantial component of the forage base for native cold-water fish like Lake Trout and Atlantic Salmon. Extirpation or depletion of deepwater Bloater populations has left...
Do hardened shoreline habitats help or hurt? Quantifying the extent of coregonine spawning and egg incubation suitability on human-modified habitats in Lake Ontario
Conserving and restoring Cisco (Coregonus artedi) and Lake Whitefish (C. clupeaformis) populations is a management objective within individual Great Lakes and at the basin scale. Similar to other fishes of conservation concern, anthropogenic changes to spawning...
Evaluation of sequential chemical marking of Oxytetracycline, Alizarin Red S, and Calcein in calcified structures of bloaters (Coregonus hoyi)
This project will investigate the unique chemical marking patterns produced within the otoliths, lower jaw, and ribs of bloaters after sequential immersions of Oxytetracycline (OTC), Alizarin Red S (ARS), and calcein. This project is fully aligned with the Coregonine...
Hatchery production and research to support restoration of sustainable Coregonine populations in Lake Ontario (FY24)
Coregonine species in the Great Lakes, such as Cisco and Bloaters, historically represented a substantial component of the forage base for native cold-water fish like Lake Trout and Atlantic Salmon. Extirpation or depletion of deepwater Bloater populations has left...
Effects of incubation temperature on survival, growth, morphology, and gene expression of artificially reared cisco (Coregonus artedi): implications for best practices for captive propagation and restoration
A key tool for Great Lakes coregonine restoration is reintroduction via fish stocking. Stocking programs are currently underway, including efforts to restore cisco Coregonus artedi in Saginaw Bay, Lake Huron (Lake Huron Technical Committee 2007; Riley and Ebener 2020)...
Testing habitat’s influence on Cisco reproductive success using egg translocation
Great Lakes Restoration Initiative studies from the Coordinated Science and Monitoring Initiative, Native Fish Restoration, and DOI Steering Committee from fiscal years 2018 - 2022 have rapidly improved our understanding of how habitat influences coregonine spawning...
Defining bloater spawning habitat to inform potential impediments to Lake Ontario bloater reintroduction
Efforts to reintroduce bloater (Coregonus hoyi) in Lake Ontario have been ongoing for 11 years (Weidel et al. 2022). Although more than 1.1 million bloater have been released, the objective of a self-sustaining population has yet to be achieved. Reintroduction efforts...
Is handling and transport stress limiting post-stocking survival of yearling bloater C. hoyi in Lake Ontario?
Bloater (C. hoyi) have been stocked in Lake Ontario for 11 years with limited success (15 total recaptures; Weidel et al., 2022). Short term (1-12 days) post-stocking survival has been estimated at 42% with 22% of the mortality occurring in the first hour post-release...
Hatchery production and research to support restoration of sustainable Coregonine populations in Lake Ontario (FY23)
This project focuses on the production of Coregonines at the USFWS-ANFH and NEFC hatcheries, working in partnership with USGSTLAS, NYSDEC, OMNRF, and USFS-LOBS to further progress towards fish community goals outlined by the GLFC Lake Ontario Committee (LOC) through...
Developing a high throughput method to genotype coregonines at a standardized panel of loci for genetic monitoring and parentage-based tagging applications
A central component of coregonine restoration in the Great Lakes is hatchery production, and active supplementation programs are underway in Lakes Ontario and Huron. Importantly, these efforts must consider the decades of work in other salmonids that demonstrate...
Can stocked Bloater (Coregonus hoyi) survival be increased with environmental conditioning?
Bloater (Coregonus hoyi) were historically an important component of the Lake Ontario fish community but the species was likely extirpated by the 1970’s. A binational restoration has stocked over one million Bloater into Lake Ontario since 2012, however, low...
Examining the potential for unrepresentative sampling during cisco Coregonus artedi gamete collections for the Saginaw Bay restoration effort – Year 2
The cisco Coregonus artedi restoration effort in Saginaw Bay utilizes gametes sourced from northern Lake Huron, in the Les Cheneaux Islands and Drummond Island region (LHTC 2007). Gametes have been collected from bays in the Les Cheneaux area and Whitney Bay (Drummond...
Hatchery production and research to support restoration of sustainable coregonine populations in Lake Ontario (FY21, FY22)
This project focuses on the production of Coregonines at the USFWS-ANFH and NEFC hatcheries, working in partnership with USGSTLAS, NYSDEC, OMNRF, and USFS-LOBS to further progress towards fish community goals outlined by the GLFC Lake Ontario Committee (LOC) through contributing to Coregonine reintroduction and restoration. Production requests originate from the LOC and the NYSDEC. Fish health monitoring is a required component of the production program to transfer fish, maintain optimal fish health in culture facilities, and facilitate the restoration of both the natural forage base and the predatory Lake Trout populations in the Great Lakes. Production of bloater (Coregonus hoyi) in FY22 is part of a multi-year restoration effort for Lake Ontario.
How have changes to coregonine spawning habitat influenced reproductive success?
Lake Ontario’s Cisco, Coregonus artedi, and Lake Whitefish, Coregonus clupeaformis populations have declined for centuries and surveys suggest populations are impeded during early life stages. This project developed methods to quantify habitat specific coregonine egg...