Cooperative Agreement for CESU-affiliated Partner with Great Lakes Northern Forest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit

The US Geological Survey is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU Partner for a 2-year research project to study overwinter hydrodynamics on Lake Erie cold-water fish spawning reefs. Loss of winter presents a challenge for management of cold-water fishes. Ice cover has declined in recent decades in the Great Lakes, which is expected to continue based on existing climate projections. Ice cover has been linked to reproductive success for cold-water fishes, such as fishes from the genus Coregonus. Several factors have been proposed as potential mechanisms for ice cover-recruitment linkages, including wind-driven currents displacing early life stages from nursery habitats and causing burying of early life stages with fine sediments. The hypothesis is that ice cover protects the water’s surface from wind and creates a more stable hydrodynamic environment. However, the hydrodynamics on spawning reefs have not been measured under conditions of ice cover to estimate the conditions experienced by cold-water fish early life stages.