Morphological and genetic data for the Lake Superior cisco complex, 2006-2021

Contained in this data release are the core data elements of our study of the contemporary diversity of the cisco complex of Lake Superior as described by Koelz (1929): Coregonus artedi, C. hoyi, C. kiyi, C. zenithicus, C. reighardi, and C. nigripinnis (Gorman et al. 2026). Fish were collected over a broad range of habitats and geographic regions of Lake Superior during 2003-2021. Most collections were conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada and supplemented by collections from The Nature Conservancy and state and tribal partners. A subset of 602 fish collected from years 2006-2021 were identified morphologically, genotyped, and measured morphometrically. In this data release the following data are provided for 602 morphologically identified and genotyped Lake Superior ciscoes: sample location including state and country, ecoregion, collection date, geographic coordinates, sampling gear, collector; morphological and genetic species identifications; morphological conformation scores; Q-scores; measurement data for 38 morphometric characters and counts; USGS specimen number; MEL_ID (Molecular Ecology Lab Identifier); and National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) accession numbers for genetic data.