Standardized early life monitoring programs for Cisco (Coregonus artedi) and Lake Whitefish (C. clupeaformis) are needed to evaluate outcomes of restoration interventions (Bunnell et al. 2023), but designing surveys that effectively sample each species ultimately...
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Lake Huron
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...
Augmenting efforts to detect coregonine tributary spawning populations using eDNA
Coregonines historically spawned in tributaries throughout the Great Lakes basin (Goodyear et al. 1982), but tributary spawning declined due to overfishing, habitat degradation, and other factors (Honsey et al. 2024). Recent surveys have found river spawning runs of...
Surveying alternative cisco brood source collection sites in northern Lake Huron
The restoration of cisco (Coregonus artedi) in Lake Huron is a formal management objective of the Lake Huron Committee (LHC) of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission (GLFC) (DesJardine et al., 1995). In recent decades, Lake Huron has undergone significant food web...
Continued assessment of Cisco reintroduction in Saginaw Bay, Lake Huron
There is a growing need to evaluate whether hatchery-reared Cisco (Coregonus artedi) survive following stocking and are successfully recovering in the Great Lakes (Claramunt et al., 2019; Rook et al., 2021; Bunnell et al., 2024; Fielder and McDonnell, 2024; Koeberle...
Defining bloater spawning habitat to inform potential impediments to Lake Ontario bloater reintroduction – Year 2
Bloater (Coregonus hoyi) reintroduction remains a priority for Lake Ontario management agencies. Since 2011, over 2 million bloater (age-0 through age-5) have been released into Lake Ontario without any evidence of natural reproduction by hatchery-origin individuals...
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
Development of eDNA markers for Coregonids in the Great Lakes
Determining when and how Cisco and Lake Whitefish recruitment can be reliably indexed to support evaluation, restoration, and management
Investigating past and future climate conditions of coregonine restoration habitats: A case study of Cisco in Saginaw Bay
Cisco (Coregonus artedi) was once one of the most abundant pelagic fishes in Lake Huron (Koelz 1929), supporting a large fishery in Saginaw Bay throughout the early 1900s (GLFC 2022, Rook et al. 2024). The population supporting this fishery, however, began to collapse...
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...
Genetic Monitoring of Bloater Broodstock using a GTSeq (Genotypes by thousands sequencing) Panel
Hatchery production is a central component of coregonine restoration within the Great Lakes ecosystem, and active supplementation programs are currently underway in Lakes Ontario and Huron. As the development of coregonine broodstock lines and methods associated with...
Development of a Novel Telemetry Tag Attachment Method for Understanding Coregonine Ecology, Movements, and Habitat Use
Acoustic telemetry is at the forefront of fisheries research and management in the Great Lakes, and the combination of the ever-expanding receiver network coupled with over 25,000 tagged fish across 53 species (since 2010) continues to provide a wealth of critical...
Implementation of Coregonine Population Viability Analysis within the Coregonine Restoration Framework – Year 4
The Coregonine Restoration Framework (CRF) provides an adaptive management structure to guide restoration of this suite of species in the Great Lakes Region. Initial steps in this effort established four science teams—Resolve Taxonomy, GAP Analysis, Population...
Continuing evaluation components of the Lake Huron Technical Committee’s Cisco reintroduction study for FY25
Cisco (Coregonus artedi) are functionally absent from the western main basin of Lake Huron and as such restoring Cisco “to a significant level” (DesJardine, 1995) remains an unmet objective for Lake Huron management agencies (Riley and Ebener, 2020). In 2007 the Lake...
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...
Expanding efforts to document and understand Great Lakes coregonine river spawning – Year 2
Restoration and conservation efforts hinge on the identification of key habitats, such as fish spawning habitats (Lewis et al. 1996; Kondolf 2000), and the potentially distinct populations that use them. Knowledge of these habitats can help to ensure that conservation...
Expanding efforts to document and understand Great Lakes coregonine river spawning
Our project team sampled five Great Lakes tributaries in fall 2022 and spring 2023 to assess evidence of tributary spawning by coregonines, such as cisco Coregonus artedi and lake whitefish C. clupeaformis. Specifically, we sampled the Chaumont River, Niagara River,...
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)...
Evaluating post-stocking movement, mortality, and habitat use of fall-stocked cisco Coregonus artedi in Saginaw Bay, Lake Huron with acoustic telemetry
The Lake Huron Committee aims to restore cisco Coregonus artedi in Lake Huron (DesJardine et al. 1995; Lake Huron Technical Committee 2023). To that end, the Lake Huron Technical Committee has implemented a plan for re-establishing a population in the main basin of...
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...
Supporting evaluation components of the Lake Huron Technical Committee’s Cisco reintroduction study for FY24
Cisco (Coregonus artedi) are functionally absent from the western main basin of Lake Huron and as such restoring Cisco “to a significant level” (DesJardine 1995) remains an unmet objective for Lake Huron management agencies (Riley and Ebener 2020). In 2007 the Lake...
Use of multi-gear sampling to improve abundance estimates of demersal Coregonines in the Great Lakes
Acoustic and mid-water trawl surveys have been used to estimate abundance and biomass of Great Lakes coregonines for decades. Acoustic sampling has potential to be an important tool in the assessment of future coregonine restoration efforts because new populations...