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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Habitat Modeling & Environmental Assessment
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...
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...
Chemical composition of incubation substrates and their effect on survival of cisco (Coregonus artedi) embryos
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...
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...
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...
Implementation of Coregonine Population Viability Analysis within the Coregonine Restoration Framework – Year 3
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...
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...
Implementation of Coregonine population viability analysis within the Coregonine restoration framework – Year 2
The Coregonine Restoration Framework provides an adaptive management structure to guide restoration of this suite of species in the Great Lakes Region. Initial steps in this effort are underway with the establishment of four science teams [Resolve Taxonomy, GAP...
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...
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...