Publications

Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and steelhead (O. mykiss) have established naturalized populations throughout the Great Lakes. Young-of-year of these species occur sympatrically for about one month in Lake Ontario tributaries. This study examined the diets of subyearling Chinook salmon and steelhead relative to available food in the Salmon River, New York. Terrestrial...

While few environmental measurements of brominated diphenyl ethers (BDEs) were completed prior to the mid-1990s, analysis of appropriately archived samples might enable the determination of contaminant trends back to the introduction of these chemicals. In this paper, we first investigate the stability of BDEs in archived frozen and extracted fish samples, and then characterize trends of...

Localized natural reproduction of lake trout Salvelinus namaycush in Lake Huron has occurred since the 1980s near Thunder Bay, Michigan. During 2004–2006, USGS spring and fall bottom trawl surveys captured 63 wild juvenile lake trout at depths ranging from 37–73 m at four of five ports in the Michigan waters of the main basin of Lake Huron, more than five times the total number captured...

No abstract available.

The population of burbot Lota lota in Lake Erie recovered during 1986–2003, mainly because of the control of sea lamprey Petromyzon marinus, which began in 1986. Burbot populations continued to grow during 1996–1998, when sea lamprey control was substantially reduced. We calculated mortality parameters for burbot in Lake Erie by estimating age at capture for 2,793 burbot caught in annual...

The burbot Lota lota population in Lake Erie increased dramatically between 1995 and 2003, due mainly to control of the sea lamprey Petromyzon marinus, which began in the late 1980s. We estimated total length- and weight-at-age at capture for burbot caught in annual gillnet surveys of eastern Lake Erie during August 1994–2003. Mean total length was generally greater for burbot age 4–9...

Deepwater sculpin (Myoxocephalus thompsonii) were abundant in Lake Ontario in the 1920s and at least common into the 1940s. By the 1960s they were rare and, thereafter, some considered the population extirpated even though a synoptic survey of the lake in 1972 produced three, relatively large (148–165 mm total length, TL), and presumably old, specimens from the northern half of the lake...

Burrowing mayflies (Hexagenia limbata and H. rigida) recolonized sediments of the western basin of Lake Erie in the 1990s following decades of pollution abatement. We predicted that Hexageniawould also disperse eastward or expand from existing localized populations and colonize large regions of the other basins. We sampled zoobenthos in parts of the western and central basins yearly from...

Cladophora, a nuisance and invasive, filamentous algae (Chlorophyta), massively accumulates along the shores of the lower Great Lakes each summer causing great economic damage and compromising recreational opportunity and perhaps public health. In vitro experiments showed that Cladophora samples were physically and biologically degraded when subjected to TiO2-mediated photocatalysis. For...

Little is known about the ecology of round goby (Neogobius melanostomus), an invasive benthic fish, in the profundal zone of the Great Lakes. In April 2002–2005 we caught increasing numbers of round gobies with a bottom trawl in the 45–150 m depth range of southwestern Lake Ontario. In 2005, we examined gut contents of 30 round gobies from each of three depths, 55, 95, and 130 m, and...

A large complex of coregonine species historically dominated the fish community of Lake Michigan. The current species complex is simplified with one remaining coregonine, bloater (Coregonus hoyi), deepwater sculpin (Myoxocephalus thompsoni), slimy sculpin (Cottus cognatus), and two dominant invaders, alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) and rainbow smelt (Osmerus mordax). To better understand...

Determination of which aspects of habitat quality and habitat spatial arrangement best account for variation in a species’ distribution can guide management for organisms such as the Karner blue butterfly (Lycaeides melissa samuelis), a federally endangered subspecies inhabiting savannas of Midwest and Eastern United States. We examined the extent to which three sets of predictors, (1)...