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:
2026
Evaluating genetic and phenotypic similarity of extant Cisco populations in coastal inland lakes to historic and contemporary Lake Michigan populations
Several recent research projects are producing data that will inform the delineation of historic and contemporary Cisco spatial units ahead of an assessment requested by the Lake Michigan Technical Committee (anticipated 2026). This includes work to genotype historic...
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...
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...
Evaluating the effects of tank color and environmental complexity on cisco phenotypes, coloration, and epigenomics
Captive rearing is an important component of restoration efforts for declining fish populations, including coregonines such as cisco (Coregonus artedi) in the Great Lakes. However, captive rearing often leads to unintended fitness and phenotypic effects on salmonids....
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...
Structured Decision Making for Lake Erie Cisco: Operationalizing the Coregonine Restoration Framework
This project proposes to undertake a Structured Decision Making (SDM) process to support Cisco restoration in the New York and Pennsylvania waters of Lake Erie, directly operationalizing the “Restore” phase of the Coregonine Restoration Framework (CRF; Figure 2 of...
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...
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...
Coregonine Captive Broodstock Developed from Wild-Caught Juveniles: Strategies to Increase Survival of Captured Juvenile Coregonines and Exploration of Long-Term Holding and Spawning
Coregonine restoration has largely relied on established hatchery broodstocks, human-facilitated spawning of ripe fish in the field, or leveraging commercial fisheries for gamete collection. These methods can induce unintended consequences such as hybridizations and...
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...