Principal Investigators: Tomas Höök (CILER), and Stephen B. Brandt (NOAA/GLERL)

The purpose of this project is to pursue a wide-variety of Great Lakes fisheries-related research including the two focus areas (objectives) listed below. The primary mechanism for achieving objectives is support of a Research Investigator at the University of Michigan's Cooperative Institute for Limnology and Ecosystems Research.

• Evaluation of Lake Circulation Effects. To evaluate the importance of lake circulation, we will adapt an extant individual-based Lake Michigan yellow perch model that has been integrated with a 3-D advective model to identify patterns of dispersion, growth, and development of alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) in Lake Michigan. In turn, model output can be related to indices of year-class strength to help assess the importance of wind-driven circulation on the recruitment process.


• Evaluation of Oxygen and Temperature Effects. To quantify how reduced oxygen availability influences fish recruitment and food-web dynamics in central Lake Erie, we will develop spatially-explicit bioenergetics models of growth rate for important predator and prey species (e.g., lake whitefish, rainbow smelt Osmerus mordax, walleye Sauger vitreus) before, during, and after a low-oxygen event, across seasons and across the three basins of Lake Erie. Data collected via rigorous field-sampling during spring, summer, and fall 2005-2006 will be used to provide estimates of habitat availability (e.g., dissolved oxygen, temperature, prey) and consumption, which can be incorporated into these bioenergetics-based growth rate potential models. In this way, we will be using estimated growth rates as a means to assess habitat quality.