Use of Advanced Technologies to Improve Fisheries Assessments on Lake Superior
The mission brings together state, federal, tribal, Canadian provincial, private, and non-profit partners using advanced fishery research approaches to enhance fishery assessment methods.
The GLSC is using advanced technologies to carry out multi-partner hydroacoustic fishery surveys and experiments during August and September, 2022, in western Lake Superior. The work is being conducted to learn how existing hydroacoustic methods can be improved to provide more accurate and precise estimates of fish populations in western Lake Superior and the Great Lakes more generally. Six different research vessels operated by the USGS, the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin, the Grand Portage and Red Cliff Bands of Lake Superior Chippewa, and the Province of Ontario will be used along with four autonomous vehicles during the month-long fisheries science mission.
Two types of remotely-helmed or autonomous vehicles carrying scientific-grade hydroacoustic echosounders will be deployed along several transects. They include two remotely-helmed Saildrone Explorers developed by Saildrone, Inc., and two long-range autonomous underwater vehicles (LRAUVs) developed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. These vehicles are quiet and the acoustic data they collect will be compared to the data obtained by crewed, conventionally-powered research vessels to determine whether the noise generated by these vessels influences fish behavior during hydroacoustic prey fish surveys. One of the LRAUVs will also be used to detect fish near the water surface, where they cannot be detected by crewed vessels. The other LRAUV will be filtering water samples for fragments of DNA left behind by fishes in the vicinity. These so called “environmental DNA” or “eDNA” samples will be used to estimate relative abundances of prey fish species and compared to mid-water trawl samples from the crewed vessels.
Saildrones are surface vehicles that use wind and solar power and carry down-looking echosounders. Both saildrones will launch from Ashland, Wisconsin, in early August 2022, and will be recovered at the same location in early September. One of the saildrones will conduct transects in the open waters of the western end of Lake Superior before continuing to nearshore transects on the northern and southern shorelines. The data generated will be used to develop estimates of fish abundance and biomass to compare to data collected during recent lake-wide hydroacoustic surveys undertaken using the USGS research vessel Kiyi.
The second saildrone will conduct “overtake experiments” where agency vessels will follow the same track as a saildrone on the same night and conduct multiple overtakes to assess the distances at which vessel noise scares fish away. By comparing fish densities assessed using the saildrone to those assessed using conventionally powered vessels, the mission team will learn how vessel noise influences fish distributions during hydroacoustic surveys and, therefore, be able to quantify any bias that might exist in the vessel-gathered hydroacoustic data. A series of overtake corridors are planned in western Lake Superior. Vessels from the six cooperating organizations will interact with this saildrone as it sails through their respective jurisdictions.
The LRAUV with echosounders is scheduled to sample along the transects in the western end of Lake Superior during mid-August. This vehicle will run these transects at a depth typically 60 meters below the surface but will make periodic ascents to the surface for environmental profiling and to reacquire geographic positioning. It carries both up-looking and down-looking echosounders in order to evaluate densities of fishes occurring near the lake surface that are likely to go undetected by surface-based vehicles or vessels. The second LRAUV carrying the eDNA sampling device will work exclusively in Lake Michigan at the same time that an annual survey is being conducted using echosounders and mid-water trawl nets. The comparison of fish relative abundances between the trawl samples and the eDNA will help evaluate whether eDNA is a valid proxy for net samples.
This multi-partner mission intends to provide the best possible information regarding prey fish abundances in western Lake Superior for fishery managers and to improve USGS hydroacoustic methods used throughout the Great Lakes.
The mission brings together state, federal, tribal, Canadian provincial, private, and non-profit partners using advanced fishery research approaches to enhance fishery assessment methods.
The GLSC is using advanced technologies to carry out multi-partner hydroacoustic fishery surveys and experiments during August and September, 2022, in western Lake Superior. The work is being conducted to learn how existing hydroacoustic methods can be improved to provide more accurate and precise estimates of fish populations in western Lake Superior and the Great Lakes more generally. Six different research vessels operated by the USGS, the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin, the Grand Portage and Red Cliff Bands of Lake Superior Chippewa, and the Province of Ontario will be used along with four autonomous vehicles during the month-long fisheries science mission.
Two types of remotely-helmed or autonomous vehicles carrying scientific-grade hydroacoustic echosounders will be deployed along several transects. They include two remotely-helmed Saildrone Explorers developed by Saildrone, Inc., and two long-range autonomous underwater vehicles (LRAUVs) developed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. These vehicles are quiet and the acoustic data they collect will be compared to the data obtained by crewed, conventionally-powered research vessels to determine whether the noise generated by these vessels influences fish behavior during hydroacoustic prey fish surveys. One of the LRAUVs will also be used to detect fish near the water surface, where they cannot be detected by crewed vessels. The other LRAUV will be filtering water samples for fragments of DNA left behind by fishes in the vicinity. These so called “environmental DNA” or “eDNA” samples will be used to estimate relative abundances of prey fish species and compared to mid-water trawl samples from the crewed vessels.
Saildrones are surface vehicles that use wind and solar power and carry down-looking echosounders. Both saildrones will launch from Ashland, Wisconsin, in early August 2022, and will be recovered at the same location in early September. One of the saildrones will conduct transects in the open waters of the western end of Lake Superior before continuing to nearshore transects on the northern and southern shorelines. The data generated will be used to develop estimates of fish abundance and biomass to compare to data collected during recent lake-wide hydroacoustic surveys undertaken using the USGS research vessel Kiyi.
The second saildrone will conduct “overtake experiments” where agency vessels will follow the same track as a saildrone on the same night and conduct multiple overtakes to assess the distances at which vessel noise scares fish away. By comparing fish densities assessed using the saildrone to those assessed using conventionally powered vessels, the mission team will learn how vessel noise influences fish distributions during hydroacoustic surveys and, therefore, be able to quantify any bias that might exist in the vessel-gathered hydroacoustic data. A series of overtake corridors are planned in western Lake Superior. Vessels from the six cooperating organizations will interact with this saildrone as it sails through their respective jurisdictions.
The LRAUV with echosounders is scheduled to sample along the transects in the western end of Lake Superior during mid-August. This vehicle will run these transects at a depth typically 60 meters below the surface but will make periodic ascents to the surface for environmental profiling and to reacquire geographic positioning. It carries both up-looking and down-looking echosounders in order to evaluate densities of fishes occurring near the lake surface that are likely to go undetected by surface-based vehicles or vessels. The second LRAUV carrying the eDNA sampling device will work exclusively in Lake Michigan at the same time that an annual survey is being conducted using echosounders and mid-water trawl nets. The comparison of fish relative abundances between the trawl samples and the eDNA will help evaluate whether eDNA is a valid proxy for net samples.
This multi-partner mission intends to provide the best possible information regarding prey fish abundances in western Lake Superior for fishery managers and to improve USGS hydroacoustic methods used throughout the Great Lakes.