Identification of Larval Fishes of the Great Lakes Basin

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Identification of Larval Fishes of the Great Lakes Basin IDENTIFICATION OF LARVAL FISHES OF THE GREAT LAKES BASIN WITH EMPHASIS ON THE LAKE MICHIGAN DRAINAGE’ Edited by NANCY A. AUER2 Great Lakes Research Division University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan Citation guide for volume and individual accounts: AUER, N. A. (ed.). 1982. Identification of larval fishes of the Great Lakes basin with emphasis on the Lake Michigan drainage. Great Lakes Fishery Commission, Ann Arbor, MI 48105. Special Pub. 82-3:744 pp. FUIMAN, L. A. 1982. Family Petromyzontidae, lampreys. pp. 23-37. In N. A. Auer (ed.) . 1982. Identification of larval fishes of the Great Lakes basin with emphasis on the Lake Michigan drainage. Great Lakes Fishery Commission, Ann Arbor, Ml 48105. Special Pub. 82-3:744 pp. Sponsored by: Great Lakes Fishery Commission 1451 Green Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48105 Consumers Power Company Environmental Department Jackson, Michigan 49201 1 Contribution Number 355 of the Great Lakes Research Division, the University of Michigan. 2 Current address: Department of Biological Sciences, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Ml 48831 Questions and comments concerning this volume may be addressed to the editor at the above address. FOREWORD The results of three major initiatives are coming together to give fishery scientists, managers, and administrators a better understanding of the spawning and early life history processes of Great Lakes fishes: 1. synthesis of information via symposia, 2. a text to provide greater ability to identify fish eggs and larvae, and 3. an atlas of fish spawning and nursery areas. 1. The Symposia The 1955 Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries charges, in part, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission to determine what measures are best adapted to make possible the maximum:‘; sustained productivity of any stock of fish in the convention area which is of common concern to the fisheries of Canada and the United States. In its efforts to execute this charge and rehabilitate the fishery resources of the Great Lakes, the Commission views as its ultimate goal development and maintenance of balanced fish communities of desired species supported by natural reproduction. In determining measures to reach its goal, the Commission feels a great responsibility to ensure continuing development of knowledge, synthesis of what is al ready known, and its application to Great Lakes fishery management. As one way to meet this responsibility, the Commission has promoted, by active participation and varying degrees of financial and developmental support, symposia which focus, in part, on fish reproduction and early life hi story. These symposia include, in 1971, the international symposium on Salmonid Communities in Oligotrophic Lakes (SCOL) (J. Fish. Res. Board Can., Vol. 29, No. 6); 1972, Bio-Engineering Symposium for Fish Culture - I; 1976, the Percid international Symposium (PERCIS) (J. Fish. Res. Board Can., Vol. 34, No. 10) ; 1978, a symposium on Selected Coolwater Fishes of North America (Kendall, R. L., Spec. Pub. Am. Fish. Soc.); 1979, the Sea Lamprey international Symposium (SLIS) (Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci., Vol. 37, No. 11); 1979, Bio-Engineering Symposium for Fish Culture - II (Allen, L. J. and E. C. Kinney, Spec. Pub. Am. Fish. Soc.); 1980, the Stock Concept International Symposium (STOCS) (Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci., Vol. 38, No. 12); 1981, the international symposium on Acidic Precipitation and Fishery Impacts (Johnson, R., Spec. Pub. Am. Fish. Soc.) ; and most recently, 1981, the Fish Health Workshop (Cairns, V. and P. V. Hodson ed., tentative title - Techniques for monitoring effects of contaminants on fish. In preparation. John Wiley and Sons.) On line for 1983 is the Urban Fishing Symposium and the Conference on Lake Trout Research - Strategies for Rehabilitation in the Great Lakes (CLAR). Major topics at CLAR dealing with reproduct ion and early life history will include genetics, stocking practices, species interactions, contaminants and water quality, physiology and behavior, and habitat requirements. The conferees will determine and rank research needs to accelerate further rehabilitation of Great Lakes lake trout and recommend optimum methods. * In line with current fishery management philosophy and practice, the Commission also considers the options associated with opt i mum sustained productivity. i i i 2. The Text Concurrent with these symposia, there have been other trends and events more directly associated with development and synthesis of Great Lakes information on fish spawning and early life history. In the mid-1960s officials of the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration (FWPCA) became alarmed at the proliferation of thermal-electric generating stat ions employing once-through cooling and the large number planned for the future. The Great Lakes offered “unlimited” cooling water and Chicago FWPCA personal were particularly concerned with thermal effects on fish and aquatic life in Lake Michigan. At the urging of federal and state water pollution control agency officials, the power-generating industry and other industries with heated discharges began examining plume behavior and effects. There were no established guidelines for such studies under state laws or the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. Designs were negotiable between discharger and agency. Many utilities hired environmental scientists to conduct studies, and others contracted with consultants. Heat was the cause ce’?,?bre, and in 1970 the FWPCA, backed by the Department of the Interior, called for limiting the discharge of waste heat at the point of discharge to not more than 1 F over the ambient temperature of the receiving water. The public and some scientists and administrators feared waste heat would cause undesirable changes in local thermal regimes and biological communities. As the power producers argued against the limitation and the consequent need for cooling towers on the basis of thermal discharge control, the controversy raised intense public interest which resulted in emotional confrontations involving utility and regulatory representatives, public interest groups, and private citizens. During one of the State-Federal Lake Michigan Enforcement Conferences attended by more than a thousand people, Tom Edsall, Great Lakes Fishery Laboratory, Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), Ann Arbor, citing a 1970 FWS white paper, expressed hi s concern for entrainment and destruction of larval fish in the once-through cooling process of electricity-generating plants. From that beginning, the investigative emphasis in the Great Lakes shifted gradually from thermal effects to entrainment effects. In this turbulent period the U.S. federal enforcement mantle was passed from FWPCA to the short-lived Federal Water Quality Administration, and thence to the Environmental Protection Agency which quickly stated its intent to give the public better water quality than dreamed possible, and then showed its teeth in the Water Quality Act Amendments of 1972. Known as the Clean Water Act - Public Law 92-500, it addressed thermal discharges in Section 316 and in paragraph (a) invited demonstrations by dischargers that the thermal component of their waste “assured the protection and propagation of a balanced, indigenous population of shellfish, fish and wildlife in and on the body of water” into which the discharge was made. “Guidelines” evolved in 1973 for highly-structured demonstrations of the physical, chemical and biological effects of thermal discharges. This led to a mountain of tremendously expensive studies and huge, generally inconclusive reports. Many, however, provided new information on fish spawning seasons, habitats, success, and early life history. iv There was parallel concern over thermal discharges in the Ontario Min stry of Natural Resources (OMNR). The Ministry emphasized management of ts Great Lakes waters for cool water or cold water fish species and bel eved that overlapping heated plumes eventually would adversely affect the littoral zone critically important for spawning and areas. nursery Canadian researchers, pioneers in developing thermal tolerance data for fish, were well aware of the potential for damage and their data and principles were used extensively to establish thermal criteria and standards. The management of waste heat discharges and evaluation of the environmental effects of power plants in Ontario were uniquely complicated in that Ontario Hydro, Environment Ontario, and OMNR fell under the same resource policy field and each was represented on the same cabinet committee, Resource Development. The public controversy in Ontario never reached the emotional level of that in the United States, but the internal conflict among the agencies was intense at that time. Canadian federal task forces subsequently prepared evaluation guidelines for steam-electric stations and fish screening. Section 316(b) of U.S. Public Law 92-500 was the sleeper which riveted attention on the need for larval fish identification capability. It required the examination of cooling water intake structures to determine if the best available technology was being utilized to minimize adverse environmental impact. About 1974 environmental and fishery agencies and the utilities and their consultants turned their expertise to this fresh aspect of the question. In examining intakes of the 89 thermal-electric generating stations which drew water directly from the Great Lakes and connecting channels, it became quickly and painfully obvious that the existing literature on identification of Great Lakes
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