Improve Control Efficiency Through Better Understanding of Grass Carp Movements and Habitat Use
The goal of this project is to address the threat of invasive Grass Carp by developing a comprehensive understanding of seasonal movements, habitat use, and areas of aggregation to determine when and where eradication efforts would be most effective.
This research is accomplished primarily with acoustic telemetry, leveraging the Great Lakes Acoustic Telemetry Observation System (GLATOS) in a Great Lakes basin-wide interagency collaboration. This project directly addresses a top priority of the Council of Great Lakes Fishery Agencies to prevent adverse impacts of Grass Carp in the Great Lakes. This priority and related objectives were developed through a series of Structured Decisions Making (SDM) workshops involving USGS partners of the Joint Strategic Plan (JSP) for Great Lakes Fishery Management (https://www.glfc.org/joint-strategic-plan-committees.php). The SDM group was reorganized into a Great Lakes Grass Carp Advisory Committee (GCAC), which recently reiterated these objectives and the need for understanding Grass Carp movements using acoustic telemetry in the Lake Erie Grass Carp Adaptive Response Strategy 2024-2028.
Behavioral information on Grass Carp spawning, feeding, and overwinter behavior is highly sought by managers to inform the development of control and eradication (via capture and removal) strategies and efforts. Detailed observations of the location and timing of Grass Carp movements is also compared to environmental conditions to explore potential cues to these observed patterns. A keystone accomplishment and continued objective of this project was creating a tiered network of telemetry receivers. The first tier of this network is a lake-wide array of receivers that covers primarily nearshore habitats and high priority tributaries of Lake Erie filling critical gaps in knowledge of Grass Carp habitat use. The second tier is a dense array of receivers in the Sandusky River that provides fine-scale locations of tagged Grass Carp providing important information of habitat use and behavior. The third tier is an alert array that is comprised of real-time telemetry receivers in the Sandusky River, the Maumee River, a buoy network of real-time receivers along the nearshore habitats of Lake Erie’s south-west shoreline, and near real-time network of receivers at mouths of important Lake Erie tributaries that provide alerts for removal crews when Grass Carp are in these systems or habitats. We also use satellite telemetry tags on a small number of Grass Carp that provide us a real-time location when a tagged fish swims anywhere close to the water surface. These satellite locations can provide locations of fish when they are in habitats not effectively monitored by acoustic telemetry like heavy vegetated areas and shallow backwaters.
The results from this project provide detailed observations of Grass Carp spawning, feeding, and overwinter behavior and will support fishery managers in their efforts to prevent invasive Grass Carp from becoming established in the Great Lakes by determining when and where eradication efforts would be most effective.
The goal of this project is to address the threat of invasive Grass Carp by developing a comprehensive understanding of seasonal movements, habitat use, and areas of aggregation to determine when and where eradication efforts would be most effective.
This research is accomplished primarily with acoustic telemetry, leveraging the Great Lakes Acoustic Telemetry Observation System (GLATOS) in a Great Lakes basin-wide interagency collaboration. This project directly addresses a top priority of the Council of Great Lakes Fishery Agencies to prevent adverse impacts of Grass Carp in the Great Lakes. This priority and related objectives were developed through a series of Structured Decisions Making (SDM) workshops involving USGS partners of the Joint Strategic Plan (JSP) for Great Lakes Fishery Management (https://www.glfc.org/joint-strategic-plan-committees.php). The SDM group was reorganized into a Great Lakes Grass Carp Advisory Committee (GCAC), which recently reiterated these objectives and the need for understanding Grass Carp movements using acoustic telemetry in the Lake Erie Grass Carp Adaptive Response Strategy 2024-2028.
Behavioral information on Grass Carp spawning, feeding, and overwinter behavior is highly sought by managers to inform the development of control and eradication (via capture and removal) strategies and efforts. Detailed observations of the location and timing of Grass Carp movements is also compared to environmental conditions to explore potential cues to these observed patterns. A keystone accomplishment and continued objective of this project was creating a tiered network of telemetry receivers. The first tier of this network is a lake-wide array of receivers that covers primarily nearshore habitats and high priority tributaries of Lake Erie filling critical gaps in knowledge of Grass Carp habitat use. The second tier is a dense array of receivers in the Sandusky River that provides fine-scale locations of tagged Grass Carp providing important information of habitat use and behavior. The third tier is an alert array that is comprised of real-time telemetry receivers in the Sandusky River, the Maumee River, a buoy network of real-time receivers along the nearshore habitats of Lake Erie’s south-west shoreline, and near real-time network of receivers at mouths of important Lake Erie tributaries that provide alerts for removal crews when Grass Carp are in these systems or habitats. We also use satellite telemetry tags on a small number of Grass Carp that provide us a real-time location when a tagged fish swims anywhere close to the water surface. These satellite locations can provide locations of fish when they are in habitats not effectively monitored by acoustic telemetry like heavy vegetated areas and shallow backwaters.
The results from this project provide detailed observations of Grass Carp spawning, feeding, and overwinter behavior and will support fishery managers in their efforts to prevent invasive Grass Carp from becoming established in the Great Lakes by determining when and where eradication efforts would be most effective.