Publications

Lake Ontario Lake Trout (Salvelinus namaycush) rehabilitation has been assessed with fishery independent surveys to evaluate program benchmarks and compare observations with management objectives since 1983. These surveys provide information on the abundance, strain composition, and performance of stocked Lake Trout, as well as information on levels of natural recruitment, and Sea...

The Sea Lamprey Petromyzon marinus control program in the Laurentian Great Lakes is one of the longest-running and most successful invasive species suppression programs in the world. Although several techniques are used to suppress Sea Lamprey, the control program relies heavily on regular application of lampricide to kill stream-dwelling larvae. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted...

Natural resources management is often concerned with conserving rare-native or controlling rare-invasive fishes. Informing and assessing conservation and control efforts frequently requires information from captures. When little is understood about spatial and temporal fish distributions, captures can be infrequent and costly. If successful management depends on effective management...

Lake Michigan’s cisco (Coregonus artedi) population is in the midst of an expansion (2011-present) recovering from near extirpation levels observed in the 1970 s. Strong evidence of piscivory derived from observed diet analyses suggests the population may occupy a unique trophic position relative to typical expectations for the species. To verify these observations, cisco and their prey...

Diel vertical migration (DVM) is critical for moving energy and nutrients between surface and deep waters. Mysis sp. (Crustacea: Mysidae) facilitates this process by serving as predator and prey in both benthic and pelagic habitats. Mysis can also exhibit partial DVM (pDVM), where some individuals do not migrate into the pelagia at night or to the benthos during the day. However, whether...

No abstract available.

A comprehensive understanding of fish populations and their interactions is the cornerstone of modern fishery management and the basis for Lake Erie’s Fish Community Objectives (FCOs) developed in 2020 (Francis et al. 2020). The 2024 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Lake Erie Biological Station Annual Report is responsive to these FCOs and the USGS obligations via a Memorandum of...

Native freshwater gastropods are a highly diverse and imperiled group of mollusks in North America and are influenced by a growing number of problematic invasive species. Consequently, there has been an increased need for understanding aquatic gastropod assemblages throughout North America to implement conservation and management strategies. In the Laurentian Great Lakes, gastropod...

Lake trout Salvelinus namaycush, an important apex predator native to Lake Erie, were extirpated by 1965 due to overexploitation, introduction of invasive species, and habitat degradation. Cooperative lake-wide lake trout stocking has been ongoing since 1982, with stocking strategies adapting as research identifies the age at stocking, locations, and strains that optimize the recovery of...

Recent advances in fish transportation technologies and deep machine learning-based fish classification have created an opportunity for real-time, autonomous fish sorting through a selective passage mechanism. This research presents a case study of a novel application that utilizes deep machine learning to detect partially dewatered fish exiting an Archimedes Screw Fish Lift (ASFL). A...

As a popular tool for gene function characterization and gene therapy, RNA interference (RNAi)-based gene silencing has been increasingly explored for potential applications to control invasive species. At least two major hurdles exist when applying this approach to invasive plants: (1) the design and screening of species- and gene-specific biomacromolecules (i.e., gene-silencing agents...

Walleye (Sander vitreus) are a sexually dimorphic species in which females are larger than males in adulthood. Walleye can also exhibit sex- and population-based differences in migration behavior. In Lake Erie, we used acoustic telemetry to test the prediction that female walleye exhibit larger broad-scale movements than males during the summer and autumn. This prediction was based on...