The temporal trends of total mercury (THg) in four fish species in Lake Erie were evaluated based on 35 years of fish contaminant data. Our Bayesian statistical approach consists of three steps aiming to address different questions. First, we used the exponential and mixed-order decay models to assess the declining rates in four intensively sampled fish species, i.e., walleye (Stizostedion vitr...

Walleye is a very common recreational fish in Canada with a strong cannibalism tendency, such that walleyes with larger sizes will consume their smaller counterparts when food sources are limited or a surplus of adults is present. Cannibalism may be a factor promoting population oscillation. As fish reach a certain age or biological stage (i.e. biological maturity), the number of fish achieving...

Project Summary: Our work investigates the potential for competition between juvenile pollock and capelin, which has implications for how ecosystem change can affect capelin and pollock productivity. Competition negatively impacts feeding opportunities, which can in turn impact fish nutritional status, size and subsequent overwinter survival and recruitment. We are conducting an intensive study...

A real dynamic population model calculates change in population sizes independent of time. The Beverton & Holt (B&H) model commonly used in fish assessment includes the von Bertalanffy growth function which has age or accumulated time as an independent variable. As a result the B&H model has to assume constant fish growth. However, growth in fish is highly variable depending on food availabilit...

Microsatellite DNA based analysis of the pattern of genetic diversity among three coastal and five freshwater populations of pikeperch Sander lucioperca in the northern part of the Baltic Sea drainage basin indicated marked genetic differentiation between the coastal and lake populations. The F(st) between these population groups was as high as 0.25 and R(st) =0.32. In general, the lake populat...

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and total mercury (THg) are two of the most prevalent contaminants, resulting in restrictive advisories on consuming fish from the Laurentian Great Lakes. The goal of this study is to examine the temporal trends of the two contaminants in walleye (Sander vitreus) and lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) for Lake Ontario. We employed Bayesian inference techniques to...

Data from six years, September 1994–1999, of bio-acoustic surveys near the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, (AK), from which age-0 walleye pollock school and zooplankton patch locations have been extracted, were analysed using image-processing methods. Multiple passes along four transects in this major pollock nursery area were examined. The data showed high year-to-year variability in overall abundan...