Publications

Species diversity is the foundation of many ecological disciplines. This metric is often approximated using species richness and evenness, even though actual richness likely exceeds observations due to imperfect sampling methods. Estimating the “true” species richness, which includes identifying the number of missing species, has intrigued ecologists for decades. We adopted a parametric...

No abstract available.

Coastal wetlands of the Laurentian Great Lakes are complex ecosystems that provide essential biological services, including providing habitat for a suite of fish species. As restoration efforts for these coastal wetlands increase, there is a need to characterize how well restored areas support the life histories of wetland, riverine, and lake fishes. Most traditional survey methods (e.g...

Lake Erie has the most populated watershed of all the Great Lakes and has undergone dramatic anthropogenic changes. Since the 1800s, overexploitation of fish populations, habitat destruction, non-native species proliferation, industrial contamination, and changes in nutrient loading have impacted the fish community including declines in or extirpation of many native species (Regier et al...

The U.S. Geological Survey has conducted annual trawl surveys across Lake Superior since 1978 that describe trends in fish species occurrence and relative abundance to support fisheries science and management. In 2025, the Lake Superior fish community was sampled with daytime bottom and surface trawls at 72 nearshore stations in May and June and 36 offshore locations in July. Nearshore...

The sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus), a non-native species in the Laurentian Great Lakes, has significantly impacted native fish communities and commercial fisheries, requiring population suppression efforts. While traditional control methods such as lampricides and barriers have reduced sea lamprey population abundance, questions remain regarding sea lamprey dietary composition given...

Freshwater species are increasingly threatened by climate change, yet our ability to assess their vulnerability remains incomplete. Typically, climate change vulnerability assessments (CCVAs) evaluate three components: exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Adaptive capacity, defined as the ability of a species to adjust to changing conditions, provides critical insight into how...

Captive rearing is a common practice for the stocking, conservation, and supplementation of fish species worldwide, but captive-reared fish can exhibit altered phenotypes leading to reduced fitness in nature compared to wild conspecifics. In salmonids, certain studies have found limited genetic differentiation between wild and captive-reared fish. However, documented changes in gene...

At the request of the Lake Erie Committee, spatial units for Lake Erie Cisco were delineated during spring 2024. Spatial units correspond to the reproductive habitat of extirpated (unoccupied spatial units) and extant (occupied spatial units) populations. Spatial units were delineated using a Council of Lake Committees-endorsed method that involves synthesizing data for evaluation by a...

Objective Energetic reserves are important indicators of the relative health of fish and fish populations. Body condition indices that relate fish weight to length are commonly used as quick, noninvasive methods for approximating lipid content and condition. A microwave meter (i.e., fat meter or energy meter) is a noninvasive method found to be more accurate in some species. The...

Lake and seabed environments are home to fisheries and other biota that are important to ecosystems and economies, yet these environments and the species that use them are difficult to accurately assess and monitor. Traditional benthic survey techniques, like bottom trawling used by the U.S. Geological Survey, are limited by substrate constraints, poor spatial resolution and precision...

Little is understood of lake browning (due to increased dissolved organic carbon; DOC) in large lakes such as the Laurentian Great Lakes. Lake browning can alter whole lake ecosystems, including decreasing exposure to damaging ultraviolet radiation (UV-B) which is strongly and selectively attenuated by DOC more so than photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). We compared the changes in...