Project

The number of fish collected in routine monitoring surveys often varies from year to year, from lake to lake, and from location to location within a lake.  Although some variability in fish catches is expected across factors such as location and season, we know less about how large-scale disturbances like climate change will influence population variability.  The Laurentian Great Lakes in North America are the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world, and they have experienced major changes due to fluctuations in pollution and nutrient loadings, exploitation of natural resources, introductions of non-native species, and shifting climatic patterns.  In this project, we analyzed established long-term data about important fish populations from across the Great Lakes basin, including from Oneida Lake in NY, Lake Michigan, and the Bay of Quinte in Lake Ontario

Yellow perch. Photo: Solomon David
Project

To integrate results of a current condition habitat assessment of stream habitats that accounts for fish response to human land use, water quality impairment, and fragmentation by dams with estimates of future stream habitats that may change with climate.  This was accomplished by 1) Characterization of the current condition of stream fish habitats throughout the NE CASC region based on responses of target fish species to a diverse set of landscape-scale disturbances; 2) Identification of stream reaches predicted to change with climate and likely to change distributions of target fish species throughout the region; and 3) Development of a spatially-explicit web-based decision support viewer (FishTail) showing measures of current landscape condition along with estimates of changes in habitat that may occur with changes in climate. Tools and Products FishTail https://ccviewer.wim.usgs

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