Freshwater Drum Diet, Age, and Morphology Data in Lake Erie; 2017, 2021, and 2022

Impacts of dreissenid mussels (Dreissena spp.) on Great Lakes ecosystems are well documented, but a better understanding of mechanisms that cause variation in mussel abundance is needed. An outstanding question is how much mussel biomass is consumed by predation. To date, attention has mainly focused on invasive Round Goby (Neogobius melanostomus) predation of mussels. Biomass of native molluscivores, namely the Freshwater Drum (Aplodinotus grunniens), may exceed Round Goby biomass by an order of magnitude in some areas. Thus, the role of predation on mussel population dynamics may be greater than currently assumed. We estimated the predatory impact Freshwater Drum on dreissenid populations in western Lake Erie by combining estimates of daily ration and fish biomass. Information used for estimating daily ration including Freshwater Drum diets (prey counts and dry weights (g)), biological data (total length (mm), weight (g), estimated age, effort data (coordinates of fish capture), abiotic data (water temperature (C), and morphological measurements (caudal fin aspect ratio) have been uploaded. Freshwater Drum biomass data is available at https://doi.org/10.5066/P13UTNFG.