Publications

The Great Lakes region, as defined here, includes the Great Lakes and their drainage basins in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. The region also includes the portions of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the 21 northernmost counties of Illinois that lie in the Mississippi River drainage basin, outside the floodplain of the river. The region spans about 9º...

Diet and growth of larval lake herring (Coregonus artedi) and lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) were compared in mesocosm experiments in a small mesotrophic lake in southeastern Michigan. Fish were sampled from single-species and mixed assemblages in 2-m3 cages for 8 weeks during April and May. Both species initially ate mostly cyclopoid copepodites and small cladocerans (Bosmia...

To recover direct evidence of surface fires before European settlement, we sectioned fire-scarred logging-era stumps and trees in 39 small, physically isolated sand patches along the Great Lakes coast of northern Michigan and northern Wisconsin. While much information was lost to postharvest fire and stump deterioration, 147 fire-free intervals revealed in cross-sections from 29 coastal...

Sequence variation in the control region (D-loop) of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was examined to assess the genetic distinctiveness of the shortjaw cisco (Coregonus zenithicus). Individuals from within the Great Lakes Basin as well as inland lakes outside the basin were sampled. DNA fragments containing the entire D-loop were amplified by PCR from specimens ofC. zenithicus and the...

Knowledge of the spawning cycle and factors affecting fecundity of slimy sculpins (Cottus cognatus) are important in understanding the population dynamics of this species in large lake systems, like Lake Ontario. Fecundity and the spawning cycle of slimy sculpins were described from samples of slimy sculpins and their egg masses collected with bottom trawls during four annual surveys...

Ruffe (Gymnocephalus cernuus), were accidentally introduced into the St. Louis River estuary, western Lake Superior, in the mid 1980s and it was feared that they might affect native fish through predation on eggs and competition for forage and habitat. In an effort to control the abundance of ruffe and limit dispersal, a top-down control strategy using predators was implemented in 1989...

The growth of lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) over time in the upper St. Lawrence River was examined. Growth of lake sturgeon collected during 1993 and 1994 below Robert Moses Dam near Massena, New York, was compared to that reported for the same population almost 25 years earlier. The data suggest that lake sturgeon growth was similar to that reported in the previous study. However

The thymus is believed to be a central component of haematopoiesis and immune function in teleosts. Hence, chemically-elicited adverse effects to the thymus may result in immunomodulation and organ dysfunction. The objective of this research was to assess the levels of active (apoptotic) and passive (necrotic) cell death in untreated and organochlorine treated fish thymocytes. Lake trout

We conducted experimental fishing for lake trout Salvelinus namaycush in Michigan waters of Lake Superior to determine the importance of soak time on catch per effort (CPE) in numbers per kilometer of standard gill net. We modeled CPE as a nonlinear function of the number of nights between setting and lifting (soak time), in which the nets fill at a certain rate toward some maximum after...

This review characterizes immunological disorders in fish associated with the widespread environmental contaminants, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and related halogenated aromatic hydrocarbons (HAHs). Special attention is devoted to comparing the sensitivity of fish species, identifying sensitive immunological endpoints and postulating mechanisms of action.

Adult male walleye (Stizostedion vitreum) exhibited significantly higher polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) concentrations than similarly aged female walleye from Saginaw Bay (Lake Huron). To explain this difference, we tested the following three hypotheses: (i) females showed a considerably greater reduction in PCB concentration immediately following spawning than males, (ii) females grew...

The rate of jaw tag loss was evaluated for walleye Stizostedion vitreum in Escanaba Lake, Wisconsin. We estimated tag loss using two recapture methods, a creel census and fykenetting. Average annual tag loss estimates were 17.5% for fish recaptured by anglers and 27.8% for fish recaptured in fyke nets. However, fyke-net data were biased by tag loss during netting. The loss rate of jaw...