A Thesis Entitled Lake Whitefish Spawning Locations And
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A Thesis entitled Lake Whitefish Spawning Locations and Overwinter Egg Survival in Western Lake Erie by Zachary John Amidon Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Science Degree in Biology ___________________________________________ Dr. Christine Mayer, Committee Chair ___________________________________________ Dr. Janice Kerns, Committee Member ___________________________________________ Dr. Song Qian, Committee Member ___________________________________________ Dr. Robin DeBruyne, Committee Member ___________________________________________ Dr. Christopher Vandergoot, Committee Member ___________________________________________ Dr. Cyndee Gruden, Dean College of Graduate Studies The University of Toledo May 2019 Select copyright license. 2018 Zachary John Amidon This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- nd/4.0/ An Abstract of Lake Whitefish Spawning Locations and Overwinter Egg Survival in Western Lake Erie by Zachary John Amidon Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Science Degree in Biology The University of Toledo May 2019 Lake Erie’s Lake Whitefish population has experienced a recent decline in age-3 recruitment to the commercial fishery. Juvenile Lake Whitefish index surveys indicate the recruitment bottleneck occurs before fall age-0 suggesting that factors responsible for survival likely occur in the early life history stages. To examine temporal dynamics of Lake Whitefish early life history stages and investigate their relationship to fall age-0 recruitment, eggs were collected at 4-6 locations in Maumee Bay, six locations in the mid-lake reefs, and 17 additional locations outside of Maumee Bay and the mid-lake reefs throughout two spawning and incubation seasons (fall 2016-spring 2017; fall 2017- spring 2018). Post hatch, larvae were collected and abundances compared with similar available historical data from 1995-1998 to look for changes between the two time periods. To investigate if ice cover and water temperature were related to fall age-0 recruitment, maximum Lake Erie ice cover data were plotted against fall age-0 CPUE. Viable eggs were collected at 27 of 31 sampled locations, verifying that Lake Whitefish spawned in Maumee Bay, on the mid-lake reefs, and other locations in 2016 and 2017. Although eggs were collected at all sites within Maumee Bay and the mid-lake reefs, in the spring near the end of the incubation period, no viable eggs were collected in iii Maumee Bay and few eggs were collected in the mid-lake reefs. Larval abundances in 2017 and 2018 were similar to those observed in the same location from 1995-1998 when age-3 Lake Whitefish were abundant in the fishery, indicating that eggs are hatching and surviving to the pelagic larval stage and have the potential to recruit to the fishery. Lake Whitefish recruited to fall age-0 in years that ice cover was greater than 85% during incubation. However, not all cohorts that experienced greater than 85% ice cover recruited to fall age-0. Our research indicates the recruitment bottleneck is occurring during or after the pelagic larval stage and before fall age-0, and ice cover or water temperature during incubation may have an influence on recruitment. iv Acknowledgements I wish to thank Dr. Edward Roseman at the United States Geological Survey Great Lakes Science Center and the members of my graduate thesis committee: Dr. Christine Mayer, Dr. Song Qian, Dr. Robin DeBruyne, Dr. Christopher Vandergoot, and Dr. Janice Kerns. Their input and guidance from the inception of this project facilitated the sampling, analyzing, writing, and editing process. At the University of Toledo, I would like to thank Pam Struffolino, Rachel Lohner, Ben Kuhaneck, Nicole King, Stevie King, Jason Fischer, Maddie Tomczak, Marty Simonson, Eva Kramer, and Alex Lytten. v Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgements ..............................................................................................................v Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... vi List of Tables .................................................................................................................. vii List of Figures .................................................................................................................. viii 1 Spatial Extent of Contemporary Lake Whitefish Spawning in Western Lake Erie .1 1.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................1 1.2 Methods........................................................................................................4 1.3 Results ..........................................................................................................6 1.4 Discussion ....................................................................................................8 2 Lake Whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) overwinter egg retention and larval dynamics in western Lake Erie Lake Erie .............................................................13 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................13 2.2 Methods......................................................................................................17 2.3 Results ........................................................................................................20 2.4 Discussion ..................................................................................................24 References ..........................................................................................................................37 vi List of Tables 1.1 Egg collection locations and biological data .........................................................11 2.1 Coordinates of egg collection locations .................................................................34 2.2 Coordinates of larvae collection locations .............................................................35 2.3 Larval sampling dates ............................................................................................36 vii List of Figures 1 – 1 Egg sampling location and detection map .............................................................10 1 – 2 Lake Whitefish annual commercial harvest in Lake Erie ......................................11 2 – 1 Lake Whitefish annual commercial harvest in Lake Erie ......................................28 2 – 2 Mean age-0 and age-1 Lake Whitefish catch per hectare ......................................28 2 – 3 Bathymetric map of Lake Erie and egg and larvae sampling locations .................29 2 – 4 Lake Whitefish 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 egg catch per unit effort ....................30 2 – 5 Average weekly spring larvae abundance from 1995-1998 and 2017-2018 .........31 2 – 6 Larvae, Depth, Water transparency, and Water temperature measurements .........32 2 – 7 Average weekly surface water temperatures .........................................................33 2 – 8 Maximum ice cover on Lake Erie from 1973-2018 ...............................................33 2 – 9 Maximum ice cover and fall age-0 Lake Whitefish...............................................34 viii Chapter 1 Spatial Extent of Contemporary Lake Whitefish Spawning in Western Lake Erie 1.1 Introduction Lake Erie is at the southernmost geographic range of Lake Whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) (Lawler 1965). Lake Erie’s bathymetry (average depth = 19m) (Bolsenga and Herdendorf 1993) and relatively warm water temperatures cause Lake Whitefish to segregate summer feeding habitat from winter spawning areas. During the warm summer months, Lake Whitefish remain in the cooler, deeper waters of the central and eastern basin of Lake Erie (Trautman 1981) (Figure 1-1). As water temperatures cool in October and November, a majority of the spawning population travels west along the shorelines to spawn in the shallow western basin (Goodyear et al. 1982; Regier and Hartman 1973) and Detroit River (Roseman et al. 2007; Roseman et al. 2012) where their eggs incubate until hatching in March and April. Historically, Lake Erie supported large catches of Lake Whitefish (Baldwin et al. 2009) (Figure 1-2). Commercial fishers targeted Lake Whitefish in the western basin and Detroit River in November and December, noting ripe fish wherever a shallow, hard bottom (rock, gravel, firm sand) was present (Goodyear et al. 1982). Such reports of specimens in spawning condition provide the only knowledge of Lake Whitefish spawning areas within Lake Erie (Goodyear et al. 1982). Historic 1 spawning areas identified include the Detroit River, Maumee Bay, and western basin shallow reefs and shoals. However, by the 1950s, overfishing and environmental degradation contributed to a population collapse, leaving only a remnant population, resulting in a severe reduction in commercial harvest (Ludsin et al. 2001; Ryan et al. 2003) (Figure 1-2). There was a recent resurgence in Lake Whitefish numbers in Lake Erie beginning in the early 1990s, but the population abundance has again declined, beginning in 2010. It is possible that the habitat and water quality changes during the intervening