Deepwater habitats, such as the Great Lakes, are a key strategic resource and driver of economic vitality that are threatened by multiple stressors, including overfishing, invasions of exotic species, habitat degradation, pollution, climate change, and harmful algal blooms. Under the 1954 Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries, the Department of Interior is responsible for conducting a comprehensive research and monitoring program to support multi-jurisdictional recreational and commercial fisheries, tribal harvest, allocation decisions, and fish stocking activities worth $7.0 billion annually. Our deepwater research includes monitoring for presence of specific fish species over large geographic areas, assessment of total fish biomass in multiple lakes, understanding lake-wide implications of invasive species on fisheries production, understanding factors that contribute to development of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABS), and piloting an early warning system for detection of human pathogens.
Recent deepwater habitat publications are listed below.
Feeding ecology and niche overlap of Lake Ontario offshore forage fish assessed with stable isotopes
Deepwater sculpin status and recovery in Lake Ontario
A population on the rise: The origin of deepwater sculpin in Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario benthic prey fish assessment, 2016
Ciscoes (Coregonus, subgenus Leucichthys) of the Laurentian Great Lakes and Lake Nipigon
Explore our science through the web applications below.
FishVis Mapper
The FishVis Mapper is the product of an Upper Midwest and Great Lakes LCC project, “A Regional Decision Support Tool for Identifying Vulnerabilities of Riverine Habitat and Fishes to Climate Change” that developed an approach for predicting fish species occurrence under current climate conditions and project how fish species occurrence may change under future climate conditions.
- Overview
Deepwater habitats, such as the Great Lakes, are a key strategic resource and driver of economic vitality that are threatened by multiple stressors, including overfishing, invasions of exotic species, habitat degradation, pollution, climate change, and harmful algal blooms. Under the 1954 Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries, the Department of Interior is responsible for conducting a comprehensive research and monitoring program to support multi-jurisdictional recreational and commercial fisheries, tribal harvest, allocation decisions, and fish stocking activities worth $7.0 billion annually. Our deepwater research includes monitoring for presence of specific fish species over large geographic areas, assessment of total fish biomass in multiple lakes, understanding lake-wide implications of invasive species on fisheries production, understanding factors that contribute to development of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABS), and piloting an early warning system for detection of human pathogens.
- Publications
Recent deepwater habitat publications are listed below.
Feeding ecology and niche overlap of Lake Ontario offshore forage fish assessed with stable isotopes
The forage fish communities of the Laurentian Great Lakes continue to experience changes that have altered ecosystem structure, yet little is known about how they partition resources. Seasonal, spatial and body size variation in δ13C and δ15N was used to assess isotopic niche overlap and resource and habitat partitioning among the five common offshore Lake Ontario forage fish species (n = 2037) [ADeepwater sculpin status and recovery in Lake Ontario
Deepwater sculpin are important in oligotrophic lakes as one of the few fishes that use deep profundal habitats and link invertebrates in those habitats to piscivores. In Lake Ontario the species was once abundant, however drastic declines in the mid-1900s led some to suggest the species had been extirpated and ultimately led Canadian and U.S. agencies to elevate the species' conservation status.A population on the rise: The origin of deepwater sculpin in Lake Ontario
Deepwater sculpin, Myoxocephalus thompsonii, were thought to have been extirpated from Lake Ontario. However, in recent years, abundance has increased and recruitment has been documented. There are two hypotheses concerning the origin of the current Lake Ontario deepwater sculpin population. First, individuals from the upper Great Lakes may have recolonized Lake Ontario. Alternatively, the Lake OnLake Ontario benthic prey fish assessment, 2016
Benthic prey fishes are a critical component of the Lake Ontario food web, serving as energy vectors from benthic invertebrates to native and introduced piscivores. Beginning in 1978, Lake Ontario benthic prey fishes were assessed using bottom trawls collected from the lake’s south shore (depth range: 8 – 150 m). Historically, the survey targeted the then dominant species, Slimy Sculpin, howeverCiscoes (Coregonus, subgenus Leucichthys) of the Laurentian Great Lakes and Lake Nipigon
This study of the ciscoes (Coregonus, subgenus Leucichthys) of the Great Lakes and Lake Nipigon represents a furtherance through 2015 of field research initiated by Walter Koelz in 1917 and continued by Stanford Smith in the mid-1900s—a period spanning nearly a century. Like Koelz’s study, this work contains information on taxonomy, geographical distribution, ecology, and status of species (here c - Web Tools
Explore our science through the web applications below.
FishVis Mapper
The FishVis Mapper is the product of an Upper Midwest and Great Lakes LCC project, “A Regional Decision Support Tool for Identifying Vulnerabilities of Riverine Habitat and Fishes to Climate Change” that developed an approach for predicting fish species occurrence under current climate conditions and project how fish species occurrence may change under future climate conditions.