Evaluation of a recovering lake trout population in Lake Champlain using close-kin mark-recapture and genetic strain assignment

Lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) populations in many northern North American large lake systems have been substantially reduced or extirpated due to overfishing, habitat loss, and introduction of invasive species. Following reductions in fishing pressure and successful suppression of sea lamprey, attempts have been made to restore self-sustaining populations into most of these waters but success has been slow and limited. In contrast, lake-wide lake trout restoration occurred abruptly and rapidly in Lake Champlain after 40 years of stocking, with robust, widespread, and sustained wild recruitment observed from the 2012 cohort onwards. We sought to better understand the dynamics of the recovery success in Lake Champlain using a multi-year tissue dataset, in combination with a recently-designed genotyping panel and close-kin mark-recapture, to quantify the performance (i.e., survival and reproductive success) of stocking sources and strategies with an eye towards informing restoration programs in other systems. We also assessed the overall abundance of adult fish and parental dynamics associated with wild recruitment. Our results indicate that adult survival is remarkably high and overall abundance is low compared to other large lake systems in similar latitudes, with the vast majority of wild recruitment genetically traceable to the Seneca strain fish historically stocked by New York State. We observed little evidence of hybridization between the two strains and close-kin mark-recapture estimates indicated that approximately 20 % of the adult population was contributing to successful recruitment on a regular basis. Ultimately, our results point to a growing wild population that has the potential to become self-sustaining.