TY - JOUR
T1 - Piscivory in recovering Lake Michigan cisco (Coregonus artedi): The role of invasive species
AU - Breaker, Ben
AU - Pangle, Kevin
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank our collaborators and many contributions of stomach samples for this effort. In particular, the crew members of the Survey Vessel Steelhead and MDNR Creel staff especially Kendra Kozlauskos. We thank Ted Treska for compiling the samples from Green Bay. We thank Lynn Ogilvie and Margret Chriscinske for processing cisco diets. The project was funded through the USFWS-DOI State Wildlife Grant Program (Grant T-10-T), Michigan Department of Natural Resources Game and Fish Protection Fund and Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
Funding Information:
We would like to thank our collaborators and many contributions of stomach samples for this effort. In particular, the crew members of the Survey Vessel Steelhead and MDNR Creel staff especially Kendra Kozlauskos. We thank Ted Treska for compiling the samples from Green Bay. We thank Lynn Ogilvie and Margret Chriscinske for processing cisco diets. The project was funded through the USFWS-DOI State Wildlife Grant Program (Grant T-10-T), Michigan Department of Natural Resources Game and Fish Protection Fund and Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 International Association for Great Lakes Research
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Contemporary conditions in Lake Michigan where cisco (Coregonus artedi) populations are expanding are vastly different from those encountered by the historic fish community. Invasive species introductions have substantially altered the Lake Michigan ecosystem in the last half century. Successful management efforts for cisco in Lake Michigan hinge on our ability to understand their contemporary ecology, especially diet. We collected 725 cisco stomachs opportunistically from commercial fisheries (2%) and in agency surveys (98%) over six years (2014–2019). The majority (70%) of stomachs were from East Grand Traverse Bay and 96% of these were collected at Elk Rapids. Additional samples were collected from Charlevoix (8%), Little Traverse Bay (11%), other sites in northern Lake Michigan (4%), Central Lake Michigan (6%), and Green Bay (1%). Our results indicated a high degree of piscivory, in contrast to historical and contemporary accounts of planktivory for cisco in the other Laurentian Great Lakes. The top three prey items by mass were not native to the Great Lakes and these accounted for 87% of all observed prey mass consumed: round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) (58%), Bythotrephes longimanus (15%), and alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) (14%). Round goby dominated the prey in the spring and summer, while B. longimanus and alewife occurred more in summer and fall diets. The contemporary population of cisco in Lake Michigan has been able to uniquely capitalize on abundant invasive prey resources, which may be less limiting and more energy-rich than a more typical planktivorous cisco diet.
AB - Contemporary conditions in Lake Michigan where cisco (Coregonus artedi) populations are expanding are vastly different from those encountered by the historic fish community. Invasive species introductions have substantially altered the Lake Michigan ecosystem in the last half century. Successful management efforts for cisco in Lake Michigan hinge on our ability to understand their contemporary ecology, especially diet. We collected 725 cisco stomachs opportunistically from commercial fisheries (2%) and in agency surveys (98%) over six years (2014–2019). The majority (70%) of stomachs were from East Grand Traverse Bay and 96% of these were collected at Elk Rapids. Additional samples were collected from Charlevoix (8%), Little Traverse Bay (11%), other sites in northern Lake Michigan (4%), Central Lake Michigan (6%), and Green Bay (1%). Our results indicated a high degree of piscivory, in contrast to historical and contemporary accounts of planktivory for cisco in the other Laurentian Great Lakes. The top three prey items by mass were not native to the Great Lakes and these accounted for 87% of all observed prey mass consumed: round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) (58%), Bythotrephes longimanus (15%), and alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) (14%). Round goby dominated the prey in the spring and summer, while B. longimanus and alewife occurred more in summer and fall diets. The contemporary population of cisco in Lake Michigan has been able to uniquely capitalize on abundant invasive prey resources, which may be less limiting and more energy-rich than a more typical planktivorous cisco diet.
M3 - Article
JO - Journal of Great Lakes Research
JF - Journal of Great Lakes Research
SN - 0380-1330
ER -