Spawning by lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) in the Detroit River

By N. Caswell, D. Peterson, B. Manny, G. Kennedy. 2004

89 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Summary Overfishing and habitat destruction in the early 1900s devastated lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) populations in the Great Lakes. Although a comprehensive restoration strategy for this species was recently drafted by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, a lack of current data on Great Lakes sturgeon stocks has hindered rehabilitation efforts. Historically, the Detroit River supported one of the largest lake sturgeon populations in the Great Lakes; however, little is known about the current population or its habitat use. The main objective of this study was to determine if lake sturgeon spawns in the Detroit River. As part of a larger study, baited setlines were used to capture lake sturgeon in the Detroit River in the spring and summer of 2000 and 2001. In each year of the study, ultrasonic transmitters were surgically implanted in 10 adult fish to track their movements, evaluate habitat use and identify possible spawning sites. Using telemetry and egg mats to verify spawning activity, one spawning site was located and verified in the Detroit River. Spawning was verified by recovering sturgeon eggs deposited on egg collection mats anchored at the site. Telemetry data suggested that several other possible spawning sites also may exist, however, spawning activity was not verified at these sites.

Subfields: Ecology, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Water Science and Technology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/18744dcafa9e142f97c90f4b0b18c84396678705

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In Ecology

1. Elise Furlan
2. D. Gleeson
3. M. Lintermans
4. R. Bruch

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

1. S. Kerr
2. T. Haxton
3. R. Koenigs
4. A. Welsh
5. Elise Furlan
6. D. Gleeson
7. B. May
8. M. Lintermans

Citations in the corpus

• Status of Lake Sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens Rafinesque 1817) in North America (2016, background): “Spawning flows are highly variable among populations but are generally between 0.34 and 2.0 m s 1 (Threader et al., 1998; Billard and Lecointre, 2001; Caswell et al., 2004; Johnson et al., 2006; Peterson et al., 2007; Chiotti et al., 2008).”
• Genetic Assessment of Lake Sturgeon Population Structure in the Laurentian Great Lakes (2008, background): “In Lake Huron, lake sturgeon in Georgian Bay are infrequently captured outside of the bay and fish from southern Lake Huron are associated with the St. Clair River and Lake St. Clair (Thomas and Haas 1999).”
• An environmental DNA‐based method for monitoring spawning activity: a case study, using the endangered Macquarie perch (Macquaria australasica) (2017, methodology): “…methods (i.e. use of acoustic telemetry) are often unable to deliver direct evidence of spawning and non-invasive methods are sensitive to observer biases and taxonomic misidentification (Caswell et al. 2004; Miller et al. 2012; Ko et al. 2013; Koster et al. 2013; Diana, Hanchin&Popoff 2015).”
• Lake sturgeon response to a spawning reef constructed in the Detroit river. (2011, background): “, cinder beds) (Nichols et al., 2003; Caswell et al., 2004) and on substrates reminiscent of historic spawning sites (Manny, 2006) also suggests that availability of suitable habitat may be limiting production and recovery of lake sturgeon in the Detroit River (Manny and Kennedy, 2002).”