Publications

Acoustic surveys were conducted in late summer/early fall during the years 1992-1996 and 2001-2013 to estimate pelagic prey fish biomass in Lake Michigan. Midwater trawling during the surveys as well as target strength provided a measure of species and size composition of the fish community for use in scaling acoustic data and providing species-specific abundance estimates. The 2013...

Larval Sea Lampreys Petromyzon marinus live burrowed in stream bottoms and then metamorphose into their parasitic stage. Among larvae that metamorphose in a given year (i.e., parasitic cohort), autumn out-migrants (October–December) to the Laurentian Great Lakes can feed on fish for up to 6 months longer than spring outmigrants (March–May), which overwinter in streams without feeding. We...

We evaluated the effects of long-term flow alteration on primary-producer assemblages. In 1962, Flaming Gorge Dam was constructed on the Green River. The Yampa River has remained an unregulated hydrologically variable river that joins the Green River 100 km downstream from Flaming Gorge Dam. In the 1960s before dam construction only sparse occurrences of two macroalgae, Cladophora and...

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) projects currently taking place in Great Lakes coastal wetlands provide a unique opportunity to study ecosystem response to management actions as practitioners strive to improve wetland function and increase ecosystem services. Through a partnership between the U.S. Geological Survey – Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC), U.S. Fish and Wildlife...

Lake Ontario has a mean depth of 86 m (282 ft) and a maximum depth of 244 m (801 ft) (Herdendorf 1982). The southern, New York portion of the lake has the deepest water (Figure 1). In New York waters, about 67% of the lake is

In 2013, the Lake Superior fish community was sampled with daytime bottom trawls at 79 nearshore and 35 offshore locations. In the nearshore zone, a total of 23,432 individuals of 27 species or morphotypes were collected. Nearshore lakewide mean biomass was 5.5 kg ha-1, which was slightly higher than that observed in the past few years, but below the long-term average of 8.8 kg ha-1. In...

Phosphorus showed high variation across nearshore (10 m depth) sites but was more stable at offshore (20 m and deeper) stations. In June and July, sites at the mouth of the Niagara River and at Oak Orchard had high phosphorus concentrations (20 – 46 μg/L). Epilimnetic average April-Oct total phosphorus (TP) ranged between 6.9 and 19.9 μg/L in the nearshore and between 5.8 and 10.2 μg/L...

Many fisheries professionals may not be in the job they originally envisioned for themselves when they began their undergraduate studies. Rather, their current positions could be the result of unexpected, opportunistic, or perhaps even “lucky” open doors that led them down an unexpected path. In many cases, a mentor helped facilitate the unforeseen trajectory. We offer three unique...

In 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Lake Erie Biological Station successfully completed large vessel surveys in all three of Lake Erie’s basins. Lake Erie Biological Station’s primary vessel surveys included the Western Basin Forage Fish Assessment and East Harbor Forage Fish Assessment as well as contributing to the cooperative multi-agency Central Basin Hydroacoustics Assessment and...

We evaluated the diet of Lake Whitefish Coregonus clupeaformis in Lake Huron during 2002–2011 to determine the importance of Round Goby Neogobius melanostomus and other fish as prey items. Lake Whitefish that had reached approximately 400 mm in length incorporated fish into their diets. The overall percentage of adult Lake Whitefish in Lake Huron that had eaten fish increased from 10% in...

The Burbot Lota lota is the only truly freshwater member of the cod family (Gadidae) and one of only two species of freshwater fish that have a circumpolar range (McPhail and Lindsey 1970; McPhail and Paragamian 2000). Two subspecies of Lota lota have been documented: Lota lota maculosa, which is found exclusively in North America from south of Great Slave Lake in Canada to the southern...

Invasive species such as zebra mussels pose a threat to the economies and environments of coastal and fresh-water habitats around the world. Consequently, it is important that government policies and programs be adequate to protect these waters from invaders. This chapter documents key events that took place in the early years (1988-1991) of zebra mussel colonization of the Laurentian...