Publications

Understanding the timing and drivers of migration can be beneficial for improving response efforts aimed at reducing invasive species densities. Efforts by management agencies to remove grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella), an invasive species to the Laurentian Great Lakes, have been ongoing in Lake Erie tributaries since 2018. To bolster efforts, deployment of a non-physical barrier has...

Headwater streams support vital aquatic habitat yet are vulnerable to changing climate due to their high elevation and small size. Coldwater fish are especially sensitive to the altered streamflow and water temperature regimes during summer low flow periods. Though previous studies have provided insights on how changes in climate and alterations in stream discharge may affect habitat...

In large lake systems the nearshore habitat is an intermediate zone between the shoreline and offshore, is an important nursery for larval fish, and is highlighted as an area in need of research in the Laurentian Great Lakes. In this study, we used two long-term monitoring programs to characterize the nearshore zooplankton community composition using seasonal data (May – October) and to...

River-to-lake transitional areas are biogeochemically active ecosystems that can alter the amount and composition of dissolved organic matter (DOM) as it moves through the aquatic continuum. However, few studies have directly measured carbon processing and assessed the carbon budget of freshwater rivermouths. We compiled measurements of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and DOM in several...

Phragmites australis is a cosmopolitan grass species common in wetland ecosystems across the world. In much of North America, the non-native subspecies of Phragmites threatens wetland biodiversity, hinders recreation, and is a persistent problem for natural resource managers. In other parts of the world, populations are in decline, as Reed Die-Back Syndrome (RDBS) plagues some Phragmites...

In 2022, the Lake Superior fish community was sampled with daytime bottom and surface trawls at 71 nearshore locations in May-June and 35 offshore locations in July, and at 51 Coordinated Science and Monitoring Initiative (CSMI) locations in July-October with bottom trawls, surface trawls, mid-water trawls and acoustics that were previously sampled in 2011 and 2016. Nearshore bottom...

Seasonal hypolimnetic hypoxia has been documented in Lake Erie’s central basin since the 1950s. Ship-based surveys to monitor hypoxia have been conducted since the 1980s, but they occur at a relatively low frequency and focus on the deeper areas of the central basin. To better document the seasonal development of stratification and the consequent occurrence of hypoxia, we deployed eight...

Stocking of hatchery-reared fishes has been used with variable success as a management action to promote the recovery of populations and species. The practice has been controversial for several reasons, including uncertainty about whether the hatchery rearing experience may affect reproduction after release. Fine-scale acoustic telemetry was used during three spawning seasons to test...

Phragmites australis (common reed) has a cosmopolitan distribution and has been suggested as a model organism for the study of invasive plant species. In North America, the non-native subspecies (ssp. australis) is widely distributed across the contiguous 48 states in the United States and large parts of Canada. Even though millions of dollars are spent annually on Phragmites management

Adaptive efforts to achieve water quality objectives by modifying nutrient loading can have attendant impacts on fish habitats and fisheries. Thus, coordinating fishery and water quality management depends on knowledge of fish behavioral responses to habitat change. This study combined acoustic telemetry of fish with water quality modeling to understand how water quality management might...

Quantification of predation, herbivory, and parasitism is critical to understanding the dynamics and trophic interactions of populations in an ecosystem. Such quantification can be challenging if the availability or consumption of the taxa are difficult to assess. Sometimes the consumption of a single prey, forage, or host is used as an overall index of the predation, herbivory, or...

Here we determine how traditional morphometrics (TM) compares with geometric morphometrics (GM) in discriminating among morphologies of four forms of ciscoes of the Coregonus artedi complex collected from Lake Huron. One of the forms comprised two groups of the same deepwater cisco separated by capture depth, whereas the other three forms were shallow-water ciscoes. Our three groups of...