This project involved two phases. First, to identify locations of key habitats for coregonines in lakes Erie and Ontario and their respective connecting channels, we conducted a literature review of historical spawning, nursery, and adult habitat sites where...
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Lake Whitefish/C. clupeaformis
Redesigning nearshore and offshore fish community protocols to incorporate new species identification approaches and determine optimal sampling strategies
The objective of this work was to begin the process of describing Lake Superior larval ciscoe population dynamics at the species level, something which was not possible prior to 2019 (Ackiss et al. 2020) and use this information to develop standard collection...
Comparing genetic population structure of Great Lakes cisco and lake whitefish to help determine restoration targets
Species diversity is necessary for the maintenance of sustainable fisheries because differential use of habitats can help buffer against unpredictable conditions. Therefore, an important first step to maintaining or restoring species diversity is describing extant...
How does ecological function correspond to morphology in Great Lakes coregonines?
Human activities have caused widespread biodiversity loss, particularly in freshwater systems. For example, historical fish assemblages of the deepwater habitats of the Laurentian Great Lakes were dominated by up to eight closely related taxa from the genus Coregonus....
Building molecular tools for coregonine species identification
The larval phase of Coregonus spp. represent a bottleneck in year class strength that is not well understood in extant populations and could present an impediment for coregonine restoration efforts in the Great Lakes. The use of species-specific DNA sequences to...
Spatio-statistical modeling and field validation of coregonine spawning and nursery locations for the Great Lakes, including connecting channels and major tributaries
This research builds on the spawning habitat inventory work [GLRI: Inventory and assessment of coregonine spawning locations in lakes Erie and Ontario, including connecting channels] by using data gleaned from the previous study to develop descriptive and predictive...
Dedicated surveys to describe the distribution and abundance of a remnant cisco population in Green Bay
Contemporary spawning of cisco and lake whitefish is not known to occur in southern Green Bay but in recent years a small number (< 10 per year) of cisco adults have been recovered along the Door Peninsula, and lake whitefish larvae have been captured in drift...
Are cisco and lake whitefish competitors in the Great Lakes? Implications for future reintroduction efforts
The overall objective of this project was to evaluate historical commercial gill net fishery data available for State of Michigan waters of Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron for evidence of potential negative interactions between Cisco Coregonus artedi and Lake...