Post Archive:
habitat
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...
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...
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...
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
Coregonines were once among the most diverse and ecologically, economically, and culturally important groups of fishes in the Great Lakes (Koelz 1929; Smith 1968; Eshenroder et al. 2016; Duncan 2020). Coregonines declined dramatically throughout the Great Lakes in...
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...
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...
Detection of Lake Erie Cisco using eDNA – Applications to Cisco Restoration in the Laurentian Great Lakes
Understanding extant diversity in compromised and healthy ecosystems is important to maintaining or restoring species diversity. Cisco (Coregonus artedi) and other coregonines were once found in all five Great Lakes and were central to Great Lakes food webs. The loss...
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...
Examining the potential for unrepresentative sampling during cisco Coregonus artedi gamete collections for the Saginaw Bay restoration effort
Great Lakes cisco populations declined during the 19th and 20th centuries due to factors such as overfishing, habitat degradation, and interactions with invasive species (Van Oosten 1930; Crowder 1980; Myers et al. 2009; George 2019). Cisco are now considered...
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...
Implementation of a gap analysis: comparing historical and contemporary coregonine habitat use in the Great Lakes
Understanding and comparing historic and contemporary habitat use and distributions of coregonines (Gap Analysis, Box 2) has been deemed essential to inform all boxes (Planning Phase) of the Great Lakes coregonine restoration framework (CRF). We are requesting support...
Integrating historical records to compare historical and contemporary coregonine habitat use in the great lakes
Understanding and comparing historic and contemporary habitat use and distributions of coregonines (Gap Analysis, Box 2) has been deemed essential to inform all boxes of the Great Lakes coregonine restoration framework; there are dependencies between planning boxes...
Identifying and characterizing coregonine spawning habitat in Lake Erie
During the fall of 2021 and 2022, Lake Whitefish egg deposition was assessed using egg mats and egg pumping along the southern shore of the central and eastern basins in Lake Erie. Sampling was conducted at 12 different locations with 111 individual sites sampled over...
Building an adaptive tool for mapping habitat and species to support the Great Lakes coregonine conservation and restoration framework
Coregonines have declined substantially over the past century throughout the Great Lakes. A basin-wide framework, adopted by the Council of Lake Committees, has been developed to conserve and restore these ecologically and economically important native fishes. We are...
Historical habitat use by Coregonus artedi in Lake Michigan
With the global-scale loss of biodiversity, current restoration programs have been often required as part of conservation plans for species richness and ecosystem integrity. The restoration of pelagic-oriented cisco (Coregonus artedi) has been an interest of Lake...
Contemporary habitat selection and survival of cisco in Lake Erie
This project addressed impediments to the rehabilitation of Cisco (Coregonus artedi) in Lake Erie through the application of acoustic telemetry to develop novel data on habitat use and survival of experimentally stocked fish. We tagged Cisco at the Tunison Laboratory...
Quantifying a potential mechanism between ice cover and cisco recruitment success: what role does light play in cisco embryonic development and larval survival?
Over the past several decades, Coregonus recruitment has dwindled to unprecedented levels for unknown reasons. Coregonus species are fall spawners whose embryos incubate under ice throughout the winter and hatch in spring. Recent changes in ice cover coupled with poor...
Site fidelity, depth-habitat use, and reproductive behavior of ciscoes in Grand Traverse Bay, Lake Michigan
Successful reintroduction of cisco (Coregonus artedi) to the Great Lakes requires that stocked individuals are suitably adapted to environmental conditions at stocking sites. Thus, understanding how cisco ecology, life history, and behavior varies among extant...
Movements and habitat use of cisco along a nearshore-offshore gradient in northern Lake Huron
Historically, the Great Lakes supported large and diverse cisco populations until overfishing, establishment of invasive species, and habitat loss resulted in large-scale extirpation during the mid 19th century. Managers have prioritized recovery of cisco in Lake...
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....
Historical habitat use by Coregonus artedi in the upper Great Lakes and critical embayments
The restoration of the once abundant cisco (Coregonus artedi) is a management interest across the Laurentian Great Lakes. To inform restoration, we describe historical distributions of cisco in the upper Great Lakes (i.e., Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron) by...
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...