Yu-Chun Kao, PhD (Former Employee)
Science and Products
Data releases by this scientist
Traditional and geometric morphometric data describing wild and artificially reared cisco (Coregonus artedi) from lakes Huron and Ontario
These data describe morphometric (body shape) measurements of wild and artificially reared (i.e., raised in a laboratory or fish hatchery) cisco (Coregonus artedi) from lakes Huron and Ontario in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Specifically, this data release includes traditional morphometric data (i.e., measurements of fish specimens) describing wild and artificially reared cisco from Lake Huron, as
Fisheries-dependent data for Cisco in Green Bay of Lake Michigan and Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron between 1929 and 1970
This data release presents part of historical fisheries-dependent data for Cisco (Coregonus artedi) in Green Bay of Lake Michigan and Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron collected by scientists from U.S. Geological Survey's Great Lakes Science Center, including three tables for monthly Cisco-catch and fishing-effort data and two tables for biological data of Cisco individuals. The monthly Cisco-catch and fi
2010-2017 zooplankton data from whole water-column tows in Lakes Michigan and Huron
This data release includes zooplankton data collected from a collaborative effort for Environmental Protection Agency’s Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative (CSMI). Zooplankton surveys were conducted during the growing season, from late April to early November, in two Lake Michigan transects in 2010, two Lake Huron transects in 2012, eight Lake Michigan transects in 2015, and nine Lake Hu
Bottom-trawl and gill-net data from the Upper Great Lakes, collected by R/V Cisco, 1952?1962
The data release includes part of the bottom-trawl and gill-net survey data collected between 1952 and 1962 from the research vessel R/V Cisco. The bottom-trawl dataset includes tables for fishing operations and effort (BT_OP.csv), fish catch (BT_Catch.csv), and individual length-weight-sex-maturity (LWSM) records (BT_Fish.csv) for only a subset of species (details below). The gill-net dataset inc
Morphology data for Ciscoes (Coregonus, subgenus Leucichthys) collected in the Great Lakes Cisco Project
This dataset contains morphological information for Ciscoes (Coregonus, subgenus Leucichthys) collected from the Great Lakes as part of the "Great Lakes Cisco Project". The project was initiated in 1950 by Stanford H. Smith, who was a Fishery Research Biologist in the then U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. The dataset includes 16 morphometrics (linear measurements) and one meristic (count of gi
1930-1932 Gill net data from Lake Michigan
These data describe the catch and biological data from 363 bottom-set gill-net lifts distributed throughout Lake Michigan (including main basin and Green Bay) between April and November in 1930?1932. Data collected from the R/V Fulmar were recorded in notebooks and are now archived at the U.S. Geological Survey's Great Lakes Science Center. Each lift included 1?7 gangs of linen gill nets. Each gan
Publications by this scientist
Morphological differences between wild and hatchery-reared Bloater (Coregonus hoyi) from Lake Michigan, USA
Coregonines (ciscoes and whitefishes) are economically, ecologically, and culturally important fishes that are distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere. In the Laurentian Great Lakes, coregonines declined throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and managers have prioritized their restoration. A key restoration tool is reintroduction via stocking. However, hatchery-reared coregonines can disp
Authors
Andrew Edgar Honsey, Yu-Chun Kao, Christopher Olds, David Bunnell
Comparison of traditional and geometric morphometrics using Lake Huron ciscoes of the Coregonus artedi complex
Here we determine how traditional morphometrics (TM) compares with geometric morphometrics (GM) in discriminating among morphologies of four forms of ciscoes of the Coregonus artedi complex collected from Lake Huron. One of the forms comprised two groups of the same deepwater cisco separated by capture depth, whereas the other three forms were shallow-water ciscoes. Our three groups of shallow-wat
Authors
Benjamin E Martin, Brian O'Malley, Randy E Eshenroder, Yu-Chun Kao, Chris Olds, Timothy P. O'Brien, Chris L. Davis
Distributions of Cisco (Coregonus artedi) in the upper Great Lakes in the mid-twentieth century, when populations were in decline
The restoration of the once abundant Cisco (Coregonus artedi) is a management interest across the Laurentian Great Lakes. To inform the restoration, we (1) described historical distributions of Cisco and (2) explored whether non-indigenous Rainbow Smelt (Osmerus mordax) and Alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) played a role in the decline of Cisco populations across the upper Great Lakes (i.e., Lakes Su
Authors
Yu-Chun Kao, Renee Elizabeth Renauer, David Bunnell, Owen Gorman, Randy L. Eshenroder
Replacement of the typical artedi form of Coregonus artedi in Lake Huron by endemic shallow-water Ciscoes, including putative hybrids
Various ecomorphs of shallow-water Cisco Coregonus artedi were the dominant fish planktivores in each of the Great Lakes until invasive species and over fishing resulted in extirpations and extinctions. In this paper we describe the present morphological diversity and distribution of shallow-water Ciscoes in each of Lake Huron’s three basins: the main basin, Georgian Bay, and North Channel. Typica
Authors
Randy L. Eshenroder, Yu-Chun Kao, Timothy P. O'Brien, Chris M. Olds, Chris L. Davis, Alexander T. Duncan
Assessing the global distribution of river fisheries harvest: A systematic map protocol
BackgroundAlthough surface freshwater comprises < 0.01% of the total water volume of earth, freshwater inland capture fisheries and aquaculture represent 40% of the global reported finfish harvest. While the social, economic, and ecological importance of inland fish and fisheries is difficult to overstate, they are often undervalued and underappreciated. Accurate information about these highly dis
Authors
Chelsie Romulo, Zeenatul Basher, Abigail Lynch, Yu-Chun Kao, William W. Taylor
Inland fisheries – Invisible but integral to the UN Sustainable Development Agenda for ending poverty by 2030
The United Nations’ (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development defines the formidable challenge of integrating historically separate economic, social, and environmental goals into a unified ‘plan of action for people, planet, and prosperity.’ We highlight the substantial contribution inland fisheries can make towards preventing increased poverty and, in some cases, alleviating poverty (i.e. addr
Authors
Abigail Lynch, I.G. Cowx, Etienne Fluet-Chouinard, S. M. Glaser, Sui C. Phang, T. Douglas Beard, S. D. Bower, J.L. Brooks, David B. Bunnell, Julie Claussen, S. J. Cooke, Yu-Chun Kao, Kai Lorenzen, Bonnie Myers, Andrea J. Reid, J. J. Taylor, S. Youn
Evaluating stocking efficacy in an ecosystem undergoing oligotrophication
Oligotrophication has negatively affected fisheries production in many freshwater ecosystems and could conceivably reduce the efficacy of stockings used to enhance fisheries. In Lake Michigan, offshore oligotrophication has occurred since the 1970s, owing to reductions in total phosphorus (TP) inputs and nearshore sequestration of TP by nonindigenous dreissenid mussels. We evaluated simultaneous e
Authors
Yu-Chun Kao, Mark W. Rogers, David B. Bunnell
Climate change as a long-term stressor for the fisheries of the Laurentian Great Lakes of North America
The Laurentian Great Lakes of North America provide valuable ecosystem services, including fisheries, to the surrounding population. Given the prevalence of other anthropogenic stressors that have historically affected the fisheries of the Great Lakes (e.g., eutrophication, invasive species, overfishing), climate change is often viewed as a long-term stressor and, subsequently, may not always be p
Authors
Paris D. Collingsworth, David B. Bunnell, Michael W. Murray, Yu-Chun Kao, Zachary S. Feiner, Randall M. Claramunt, Brent M. Lofgren, Tomas O. Höök, Stuart A. Ludsin
Non-USGS Publications**
Kao, Y.-C., Rogers, M.W., Bunnell, D.B., Cowx, I.G., Qian, S.S., Anneville, O., Beard, T.D., Brinker, A., Britton, J.R., Chura-Cruz, R., Gownaris, N.J., Jackson, J.R., Kangur, K., Kolding, J., Lukin, A.A., Lynch, A.J., Mercado-Silva, N., Moncayo-Estrada, R., Njaya, F.J., Ostrovsky, I., Rudstam, L.G., Sandström, A.L.E., Sato, Y., Siguayro-Mamani, H., Thorpe, A., van Zwieten, P.A.M., Volta, P., Wang, Y., Weiperth, A., Weyl, O.L.F., Young, J.D., 2020. Effects of climate and land-use changes on fish catches across lakes at a global scale. Nature Communications 11, 2526.
Kao, Y.-C., Bunnell, D.B., Eshenroder, R.L., Murray, D.N., 2020. Describing historical habitat use of a native fish—Cisco (Coregonus artedi)—in Lake Michigan between 1930 and 1932. PLOS ONE 15, e0231420.
Kao, Y.-C., Rogers, M.W., Bunnell, D.B., 2018. Evaluating stocking efficacy in an ecosystem undergoing oligotrophication. Ecosystems 21, 600–618.
Kao, Y.-C., Adlerstein, S.A., Rutherford, E.S., 2016. Assessment of top-down and bottom-up controls on the collapse of alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus) in Lake Huron. Ecosystems 19, 803-831.
**Disclaimer: The views expressed in Non-USGS publications are those of the author and do not represent the views of the USGS, Department of the Interior, or the U.S. Government.
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Science and Products
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Data releases by this scientist
Traditional and geometric morphometric data describing wild and artificially reared cisco (Coregonus artedi) from lakes Huron and Ontario
These data describe morphometric (body shape) measurements of wild and artificially reared (i.e., raised in a laboratory or fish hatchery) cisco (Coregonus artedi) from lakes Huron and Ontario in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Specifically, this data release includes traditional morphometric data (i.e., measurements of fish specimens) describing wild and artificially reared cisco from Lake Huron, asFisheries-dependent data for Cisco in Green Bay of Lake Michigan and Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron between 1929 and 1970
This data release presents part of historical fisheries-dependent data for Cisco (Coregonus artedi) in Green Bay of Lake Michigan and Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron collected by scientists from U.S. Geological Survey's Great Lakes Science Center, including three tables for monthly Cisco-catch and fishing-effort data and two tables for biological data of Cisco individuals. The monthly Cisco-catch and fi2010-2017 zooplankton data from whole water-column tows in Lakes Michigan and Huron
This data release includes zooplankton data collected from a collaborative effort for Environmental Protection Agency’s Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative (CSMI). Zooplankton surveys were conducted during the growing season, from late April to early November, in two Lake Michigan transects in 2010, two Lake Huron transects in 2012, eight Lake Michigan transects in 2015, and nine Lake HuBottom-trawl and gill-net data from the Upper Great Lakes, collected by R/V Cisco, 1952?1962
The data release includes part of the bottom-trawl and gill-net survey data collected between 1952 and 1962 from the research vessel R/V Cisco. The bottom-trawl dataset includes tables for fishing operations and effort (BT_OP.csv), fish catch (BT_Catch.csv), and individual length-weight-sex-maturity (LWSM) records (BT_Fish.csv) for only a subset of species (details below). The gill-net dataset incMorphology data for Ciscoes (Coregonus, subgenus Leucichthys) collected in the Great Lakes Cisco Project
This dataset contains morphological information for Ciscoes (Coregonus, subgenus Leucichthys) collected from the Great Lakes as part of the "Great Lakes Cisco Project". The project was initiated in 1950 by Stanford H. Smith, who was a Fishery Research Biologist in the then U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. The dataset includes 16 morphometrics (linear measurements) and one meristic (count of gi1930-1932 Gill net data from Lake Michigan
These data describe the catch and biological data from 363 bottom-set gill-net lifts distributed throughout Lake Michigan (including main basin and Green Bay) between April and November in 1930?1932. Data collected from the R/V Fulmar were recorded in notebooks and are now archived at the U.S. Geological Survey's Great Lakes Science Center. Each lift included 1?7 gangs of linen gill nets. Each gan - Publications
Publications by this scientist
Morphological differences between wild and hatchery-reared Bloater (Coregonus hoyi) from Lake Michigan, USA
Coregonines (ciscoes and whitefishes) are economically, ecologically, and culturally important fishes that are distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere. In the Laurentian Great Lakes, coregonines declined throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and managers have prioritized their restoration. A key restoration tool is reintroduction via stocking. However, hatchery-reared coregonines can dispAuthorsAndrew Edgar Honsey, Yu-Chun Kao, Christopher Olds, David BunnellComparison of traditional and geometric morphometrics using Lake Huron ciscoes of the Coregonus artedi complex
Here we determine how traditional morphometrics (TM) compares with geometric morphometrics (GM) in discriminating among morphologies of four forms of ciscoes of the Coregonus artedi complex collected from Lake Huron. One of the forms comprised two groups of the same deepwater cisco separated by capture depth, whereas the other three forms were shallow-water ciscoes. Our three groups of shallow-watAuthorsBenjamin E Martin, Brian O'Malley, Randy E Eshenroder, Yu-Chun Kao, Chris Olds, Timothy P. O'Brien, Chris L. DavisDistributions of Cisco (Coregonus artedi) in the upper Great Lakes in the mid-twentieth century, when populations were in decline
The restoration of the once abundant Cisco (Coregonus artedi) is a management interest across the Laurentian Great Lakes. To inform the restoration, we (1) described historical distributions of Cisco and (2) explored whether non-indigenous Rainbow Smelt (Osmerus mordax) and Alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) played a role in the decline of Cisco populations across the upper Great Lakes (i.e., Lakes SuAuthorsYu-Chun Kao, Renee Elizabeth Renauer, David Bunnell, Owen Gorman, Randy L. EshenroderReplacement of the typical artedi form of Coregonus artedi in Lake Huron by endemic shallow-water Ciscoes, including putative hybrids
Various ecomorphs of shallow-water Cisco Coregonus artedi were the dominant fish planktivores in each of the Great Lakes until invasive species and over fishing resulted in extirpations and extinctions. In this paper we describe the present morphological diversity and distribution of shallow-water Ciscoes in each of Lake Huron’s three basins: the main basin, Georgian Bay, and North Channel. TypicaAuthorsRandy L. Eshenroder, Yu-Chun Kao, Timothy P. O'Brien, Chris M. Olds, Chris L. Davis, Alexander T. DuncanAssessing the global distribution of river fisheries harvest: A systematic map protocol
BackgroundAlthough surface freshwater comprises < 0.01% of the total water volume of earth, freshwater inland capture fisheries and aquaculture represent 40% of the global reported finfish harvest. While the social, economic, and ecological importance of inland fish and fisheries is difficult to overstate, they are often undervalued and underappreciated. Accurate information about these highly disAuthorsChelsie Romulo, Zeenatul Basher, Abigail Lynch, Yu-Chun Kao, William W. TaylorInland fisheries – Invisible but integral to the UN Sustainable Development Agenda for ending poverty by 2030
The United Nations’ (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development defines the formidable challenge of integrating historically separate economic, social, and environmental goals into a unified ‘plan of action for people, planet, and prosperity.’ We highlight the substantial contribution inland fisheries can make towards preventing increased poverty and, in some cases, alleviating poverty (i.e. addrAuthorsAbigail Lynch, I.G. Cowx, Etienne Fluet-Chouinard, S. M. Glaser, Sui C. Phang, T. Douglas Beard, S. D. Bower, J.L. Brooks, David B. Bunnell, Julie Claussen, S. J. Cooke, Yu-Chun Kao, Kai Lorenzen, Bonnie Myers, Andrea J. Reid, J. J. Taylor, S. YounEvaluating stocking efficacy in an ecosystem undergoing oligotrophication
Oligotrophication has negatively affected fisheries production in many freshwater ecosystems and could conceivably reduce the efficacy of stockings used to enhance fisheries. In Lake Michigan, offshore oligotrophication has occurred since the 1970s, owing to reductions in total phosphorus (TP) inputs and nearshore sequestration of TP by nonindigenous dreissenid mussels. We evaluated simultaneous eAuthorsYu-Chun Kao, Mark W. Rogers, David B. BunnellClimate change as a long-term stressor for the fisheries of the Laurentian Great Lakes of North America
The Laurentian Great Lakes of North America provide valuable ecosystem services, including fisheries, to the surrounding population. Given the prevalence of other anthropogenic stressors that have historically affected the fisheries of the Great Lakes (e.g., eutrophication, invasive species, overfishing), climate change is often viewed as a long-term stressor and, subsequently, may not always be pAuthorsParis D. Collingsworth, David B. Bunnell, Michael W. Murray, Yu-Chun Kao, Zachary S. Feiner, Randall M. Claramunt, Brent M. Lofgren, Tomas O. Höök, Stuart A. LudsinNon-USGS Publications**
Kao, Y.-C., Rogers, M.W., Bunnell, D.B., Cowx, I.G., Qian, S.S., Anneville, O., Beard, T.D., Brinker, A., Britton, J.R., Chura-Cruz, R., Gownaris, N.J., Jackson, J.R., Kangur, K., Kolding, J., Lukin, A.A., Lynch, A.J., Mercado-Silva, N., Moncayo-Estrada, R., Njaya, F.J., Ostrovsky, I., Rudstam, L.G., Sandström, A.L.E., Sato, Y., Siguayro-Mamani, H., Thorpe, A., van Zwieten, P.A.M., Volta, P., Wang, Y., Weiperth, A., Weyl, O.L.F., Young, J.D., 2020. Effects of climate and land-use changes on fish catches across lakes at a global scale. Nature Communications 11, 2526.Kao, Y.-C., Bunnell, D.B., Eshenroder, R.L., Murray, D.N., 2020. Describing historical habitat use of a native fish—Cisco (Coregonus artedi)—in Lake Michigan between 1930 and 1932. PLOS ONE 15, e0231420.Kao, Y.-C., Rogers, M.W., Bunnell, D.B., 2018. Evaluating stocking efficacy in an ecosystem undergoing oligotrophication. Ecosystems 21, 600–618.Kao, Y.-C., Adlerstein, S.A., Rutherford, E.S., 2016. Assessment of top-down and bottom-up controls on the collapse of alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus) in Lake Huron. Ecosystems 19, 803-831.**Disclaimer: The views expressed in Non-USGS publications are those of the author and do not represent the views of the USGS, Department of the Interior, or the U.S. Government.
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