Development of tributary conservation priorities for Great Lakes migratory fishes

Session: Great Lakes Tributaries: Connecting Land and Lakes (6)

Matthew Herbert, The Nature Conservancy, [email protected]
Mary Khoury, The Nature Conservancy, [email protected]
Jared Ross, Michigan State University, [email protected]
Eugene Yacobson, The Nature Conservancy, [email protected]
Kohls Melanie, University of Wisconsin, [email protected]

Abstract

Fish migration between the Great Lakes and tributaries is critical for maintaining population structure and fisheries production in the Great Lakes, and provides important nutrient transport and other services.  Unfortunately, this process has been highly altered due to migratory barriers and other impacts.  In order to develop effective outcome-based conservation strategies to conserve this key process across the full suite of migratory fish, we need spatially explicit information on which tributaries are the most important.   We used a wide variety of riverine and Great Lakes fish sampling datasets to map tributary migratory fish priorities across the Great Lakes for 42 migratory fish species.  We developed an index using these empirical data for each stream reach based on occurrence frequencies, abundance, and Great Lakes occurrence frequencies adjacent to the downstream outlet. Priority tributary watersheds were identified separately for connected and unconnected (by dams) stream reaches using this empirical index.  We also used quantile regression to relate reach index scores to landscape features for each species, and resulting models were used to more fully predict out tributary priorities across the stream network. Resulting maps can be used to inform a variety of conservation actions.

Twitter handle of presenter
@Etheostomatt