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...
Post Archive:
Lake Ontario
Can hatchery-origin coregonines be used to identify potential spawning habitats in Lake Ontario?
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....
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...
Implementing science planning methods within the Coregonine Restoration Framework via expert knowledge elicitation and workshop facilitation – Year 3
Commercial harvest, invasive species, environmental change, and ultimately, shifts in ecosystem structure and function (Ives et al. 2019; Hecky and DePinto 2020) led to an ~ 70% loss of coregonine biodiversity in the Laurentian Great Lakes during the past century...
Implementation of Coregonine population viability analysis within the Coregonine Restoration Framework – Year 5
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...
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...
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...
Chemical composition of incubation substrates and their effect on survival of cisco (Coregonus artedi) embryos
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
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...
Integrating historical records to compare historical and contemporary coregonine habitat use in the great lakes – Year 4
A methodology for the Gap Analysis (Box 2 of the Coregonine Restoration Template, or CRF; Bunnell et al. 2023) is published as a USGS Cooperator Publication. Our team has begun implementation of the Gap Methodology based on Joint Strategic Plan committee requests...
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...
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...
Implementing science planning methods within the Coregonine Restoration Framework via expert knowledge elicitation and workshop facilitation – Year 2
The Coregonine Restoration Framework (Bunnell et al. 2023) includes a Planning Phase that is divided into four elements: (1) resolving coregonine taxonomy using genetics and ecology and delineating spatial units for conservation and restoration, (2) describing and...
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...
Evaluating Bloater (Coregonus hoyi) natural reproduction in Lake Ontario
Evaluation of fisheries restoration actions such as the reestablishment of coregonine populations requires a life stage approach to evaluate program success and improve understanding on potential recruitment bottlenecks. Prior to their extirpation, Lake Ontario...
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,...
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...