Publications

Inland fisheries, defined as finfish caught in lakes, rivers, and other water bodies, provide economic value and a source of protein at local and international levels. However, no comprehensive compilation of U.S. inland commercial fisheries exists. We sought to obtain data across all 50 states during 1990–2015 and noted a small, but significant, decline in harvest. The minimum harvest...

Barriers and pesticides have been used in streams to control sea lamprey in the Laurentian Great Lakes for nearly 70 years. Considerable effort has been spent to develop additional control measures, but much less effort has gone toward identifying how or where additional control measures might be cost-effectively integrated into the sea lamprey control program. We use a management...

Fecundity of fish is influenced by several factors, including body length, condition, population density, and environmental conditions. It follows that fecundity of fish populations can exhibit spatiotemporal variability; thus, periodic quantification of length–fecundity relationships is important for management. We hypothesized that average fecundity of Cisco Coregonus artedi in the...

Hypoxic conditions in both freshwater and marine habitats have a significant effect on the distribution of fish in the water column, resulting in some fishes aggregating near the edges of the hypoxic zone. These aggregations may increase fish susceptibility to fishing gears, with attendant effects on stock assessment inferences. We investigated how hypoxic conditions influenced catch...

The Laurentian Great Lakes have experienced recent ecosystem changes that could lead to reductions in adaptive capacity and ultimately a loss of biodiversity and production throughout the food web. Observed changes in Great Lakes benthic communities include declines of native species and widespread success of invasive species like dreissenid mussels in all but Lake Superior...

Species introductions provide opportunities to quantify rates and patterns of evolutionary change in response to novel environments. Alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus) are native to the East Coast of North America where they ascend coastal rivers to spawn in lakes and then return to the ocean. Some populations have become landlocked within the last 350 years and diverged phenotypically from...

Four lake trout, Salvelinus namaycush, Walbaum 1792 morphs occur in Lake Superior: lean, siscowet, humper, and redfin. Diets of lean and siscowet have been relatively well described. However, less is known about diets of humper and redfin, and overall few studies have been conducted at offshore shoals. We compared gut content data among mature (357–867 mm) sympatric lake trout morphs...

Abstract Two of the remaining coregonine species in Lake Ontario, cisco (Coregonus artedi) and lake whitefish (C. clupeaformis), spawn in Chaumont Bay, NY. Larvae co-occur in the spring but are difficult to distinguish morphologically. We applied genetic species identification using microsatellite DNA loci of 268 larvae from known locations in nearshore and offshore habitats in Chaumont...

Fatty acids are well-established biomarkers used to characterize trophic ecology, food-web linkages, and the ecological niche of many different taxa. Most often, fatty acids that are examined include only those previously identified as “dietary” or “extended dietary” biomarkers. Fatty acids considered as nondietary biomarkers, however, represent numerous fatty acids that can be extracted...

There are many ways to quantify fish movement through shallow‐water habitats, but most noninvasive methods (e.g., visual counts) are not effective in turbid coastal wetland waters of the Great Lakes. Dual‐frequency identification sonar (DIDSON) technology (Sound Metrics) offers a noninvasive, hydroacoustic‐based approach to characterize fish movement in wetlands and other habitats by...

Contemporary conditions in Lake Michigan where cisco (Coregonus artedi) populations are expanding are vastly different from those encountered by the historic fish community. Invasive species introductions have substantially altered the Lake Michigan ecosystem in the last half century. Successful management efforts for cisco in Lake Michigan hinge on our ability to understand their...

We review recent advances in age and growth estimation of invasive sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) in the Great Lakes and present a more accurate method for growth estimation. To forecast growth and prioritize streams for control actions, sea lamprey managers currently use an average daily growth model. Here, a new linear model that included stream and lake as contributing variables was