Publications

Before 1995, Great Lakes streams were selected for lampricide treatment based primarily on qualitative measures of the relative abundance of larval sea lampreys, Petromyzon marinus. New integrated pest management approaches required standardized quantitative measures of sea lamprey. This paper evaluates historical larval assessment techniques and data and describes how new standardized...

Forty-five adult burbot, Lota lota, collected in July 1998 from Six Fathom Bank (Six Fathom Bank Lake Trout Refuge) and Yankee Reef in Lake Huron, Michigan, U.S.A., were examined for parasites. A total of 10 parasite species infected burbot. Diplostomum sp., Eubothrium rugosum,Haplonema hamulatum, Echinorhynchus salmonis, and Trichodina sp. infected 60% or more of the burbot examined...

Estimates of larval sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) abundance are used to rank Great Lakes tributaries for lampricide treatment. Observers subjectively stratify habitat into three categories: type I = preferred, type II = acceptable, type III = unacceptable. Agreement was evaluated among eight observers classifying habitats in small discrete plots in two Lake Superior tributaries, the...

Prediction of how host mortality responds to efforts to control sea lampreys (Petromyzon marinus) is central to the integrated management strategy for sea lamprey (IMSL) in the Great Lakes. A parasite-host submodel is used as part of this strategy, and this includes a type-2 multi-species functional response, a developmental response, but no numerical response. General patterns of host...

Lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) in the upper Laurentian Great Lakes of North America experienced striking reductions in abundance and distribution during the mid–twentieth century. Complete collapse of populations was documented for Lake Michigan, and a few remnant populations remained only in lakes Huron and Superior. Using DNA obtained from historical scale collections, we analysed...

We examined stressors that have led to profound ecological changes in the Lake Ontario ecosystem and its fish community since 1970. The most notable changes have been reductions in phosphorus loading, invasion by Dreissena spp., fisheries management through stocking of exotic salmonids and control of sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus), and fish harvest by anglers and double-crested...

Seasonally operated barriers in rivers are used by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission to block adult sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) migrations, yet pass other fish during some part of the year. Knowledge of the overlap of spawning migrations of sea lampreys and other fish species are vital for the efficient operation of the Commission's barrier program. The migration of sea lamprey...

As part of the sea lamprey control program in the Great Lakes, a suite of about 150 sea lamprey producing streams have been regularly treated with the lampricide 3-trifluoromethyl-4-nitrophenol (TFM) every 3 to 5 years since 1958. State, provincial, and tribal agencies in the basin supported the use of TFM and urged that the risk to nontarget organisms be minimized. To determine the...

Dunes Creek, a small Lake Michigan coastal stream that drains sandy aquifers and wetlands of Indiana Dunes, has chronically elevated Escherichia coli levels along the bathing beach near its outfall. This study sought to understand the sources ofE. coli in Dunes Creek's central branch. A systematic survey of random and fixed sampling points of water and sediment was conducted over 3 years...

Coincident with the establishment of dreissenids in Lake Ontario, the depth distribution of alewife, a non-native predator of larval fishes, shifted deeper and the abundance of burrowing amphipod, Diporeia, declined sharply. The alewife distribution shift was followed by increased reproductive success of two native fishes, lake trout and yellow perch whereas the decline of Diporeia was...

Elements of the larval sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) assessment program that most strongly influence the chemical treatment program were analyzed, including selection of streams for larval surveys, allocation of sampling effort among stream reaches, allocation of sampling effort among habitat types, estimation of daily growth rates, and estimation of metamorphosis rates, to determine...

Four electrical factors that are used in pulsed DC electrofishing for larval sea lampreys (Petromyzon marinus) were evaluated in two laboratory studies to determine the optimal values to induce larval emergence over a range of water temperatures and conductivities. Burrowed larvae were exposed to combinations of pulsed DC electrical factors including five pulse frequencies, three pulse...