The Future of Salmonid Communities in the Laurentian Great Lakes

1972 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 951-957 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanford H. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Prey Species ◽  
Marine Species ◽  
Alosa Pseudoharengus ◽  
Subsequent Reduction ◽  
Stringent Control ◽  
Intensively Managed ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Major Reduction

The effects of human population growth, industrialization, and the introduction of marine fishes have reduced the suitability of each of the Great Lakes for oligotrophic fish communities. The ultimate consequence has been a reduction of fishery productivity that has ranged from extreme in Lake Ontario to moderate in Lake Superior. If measures are not taken to alleviate the adverse effects of marine invaders and trends in environmental quality, a major reduction in fishery productivity can eventually be expected throughout the Great Lakes.Prospects for the next century will be improved if the lakes can be intensively managed. More stringent control of the sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus), and subsequent reduction of the alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus), by the reestablishment of populations of large piscivores, should permit the recovery of some of the previous predator and prey species, or the development of populations of new species that are more compatible with a reduced number of lampreys. Even if marine species can be reduced greatly, the full restoration of the former fishery productivity remains uncertain and will require a high degree of coordination among all management and research agencies that have responsibilities on the Great Lakes.Unfavorable trends toward progressive degradation of water quality pose the greatest threat to restoration of the fishery resources of the Great Lakes. Where changes in water quality have been the greatest, oligotrophic species have become scarce or absent, and in the deepwater regions no other species have reoccupied the vacated niches.

Early Life Stage Mortality Syndrome in Fishes of the Great Lakes and Baltic Sea

1998 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Great Lakes ◽  
Prey Species ◽  
Lake Trout ◽  
Life Stage ◽  
Species Variation ◽  
Osmerus Mordax ◽  
Alosa Pseudoharengus ◽  
Rainbow Smelt ◽  
Thiamine Content ◽  
Lake Variation

<em>Abstract</em>.—Thiamine concentrations in representative Great Lakes prey fish, including alewives <em>Alosa pseudoharengus</em>, rainbow smelt <em>Osmerus mordax</em>, slimy sculpin <em>Cottus cognatus</em>, bloater chub <em>Coregonus hoyi</em>, and lake herring <em>Coregonus artedi</em>, and their major dietary items, including mysids <em>Mysis relicta</em>, amphipods <em>Diporeia hoyi</em>, and net macroplankton, were measured to assess their potential involvement in depressed thiamine concentrations in lake trout <em>Salvelinus namaycush </em>of the Great Lakes. Mean thiamine concentrations in all biota were greater than the recommended dietary intake of 3.3 nmol/g for prevention of effects on growth, although the adequacy of these concentrations for reproduction is not known. Mean thiamine concentrations decreased in the order alewives > bloater chub, herring > smelt and differed from the order of associated egg thiamine concentrations published for lake trout feeding on these species (herring > alewives, smelt). As a result, these data strongly implicate the high thiaminase content, rather than the low thiamine content, of alewives and smelt as being responsible for the low egg thiamine concentrations of Great Lakes lake trout stocks that feed heavily on these species. Variations in thiamine content among prey species did not appear to be related to levels in their diet, because thiamine concentrations in <em>Mysis</em>, <em>Diporeia</em>, and macroplankton showed little consistency between group or between lake variation. There was no lake to lake variation in mean thiamine concentrations of prey species, but considerable within species variation occurred that was unrelated to size.

Factors of Ecologic Succession in Oligotrophic Fish Communities of the Laurentian Great Lakes

1972 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 717-730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanford H. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Great Lakes ◽  
Yellow Perch ◽  
Lake Erie ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Fish Communities ◽  
Lake Ontario ◽  
Marine Species ◽  
Alosa Pseudoharengus ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Entire Volume

Oligotrophic fish communities of the Great Lakes have undergone successive disruptions since the mid-1800s. Major contributing factors have been intensive selective fisheries, extreme modification of the drainage, invasion of marine species, and progressive physical–chemical changes of the lake environments. Lake Ontario was the first to be affected as its basin was settled and industrialized earliest, and it was the first to be connected by canals to the mid-Atlantic where the alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) and sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) which ultimately became established in the Great Lakes were abundant. Oligotrophic fish communities were successively disrupted in Lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior as the affects of population growth, industrialization, and marine invaders spread upward in the Laurentian drainage.The degree and sequence of response of families offish and species within families differed for each factor, but the sequence of change among families and species has been the same in response to each factor as it affected various lakes at different times. The ultimate result of the disruption of fish communities has been a reduction of productivity of oligotrophic species that ranges from extreme in Lake Ontario to moderate in Lake Superior, and which has reached a state of instability and rapid change in the upper three Great Lakes by the rnid-1900s similar to the situation in Lake Ontario in the mid-1800s. Since oligotrophic species (primarily salmonines, coregonines, and deepwater cottids) are the only kinds of fish that fully occupied the entire volume of the deepwater Great Lakes (Ontario, Huron, Michigan, and Superior), the fish biomass of these lakes has been reduced as various species declined or disappeared. In Lake Erie, which is shallow, and in the shallow bays of the deep lakes, oligotrophic species were replaced by mesotrophic species, primarily percids, which have successively increased and declined. All oligotrophic species are greatly reduced or extinct in lakes Ontario and Erie, and are in various stages of decline in lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior, from greatest to least, respectively. The percids appear to be near the end of their sequence of succession in lakes Erie, Ontario, and Huron (primarily Saginaw Bay) where only the yellow perch (Perca flavescens) remains abundant. The yellow perch appears to be on the brink of decline in Lake Erie, which has been more severely influenced by water quality change than the other lakes.

A storm water retrofit plan for the mimico creek watershed

1999 ◽  
Vol 39 (12) ◽  
pp. 133-140
Author(s):  
J. Y. Li ◽  
D. Banting
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Quality Management ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Water Quality Management ◽  
Storm Water ◽  
Planning Tool ◽  
Creek Watershed ◽  
Urbanized Areas ◽  
Goals And Objectives

Storm water quality management in urbanized areas remains a challenge to Canadian municipalities as the funding and planning mechanisms are not well defined. In order to provide assistance to urbanized municipalities in the Great Lakes areas, the Great Lakes 2000 Cleanup Fund and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment commissioned the authors to develop a Geographic Information System planning tool for storm water quality management in urbanized areas. The planning tool comprises five steps: (1) definition of storm water retrofit goals and objectives; (2) identification of appropriate retrofit storm water management practices; (3) formulation of storm water retrofit strategies; (4) evaluation of strategies with respect to retrofit goals and objectives; and (5) selection of storm water retrofit strategies. A case study of the fully urbanized Mimico Creek wateshed in the City of Toronto is used to demonstrate the application of the planning tool.

scholarly journals Hydrogeochemistry and surface water quality assessment of IB valley coalfield area, India

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bishnu Prasad Sahoo ◽  
Himanshu Bhushan Sahu ◽  
Dhruti Sundar Pradhan
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Heavy Metal ◽  
Seasonal Variation ◽  
Surface Water ◽  
Water Samples ◽  
Nickel Aluminum ◽  
Acid Mine ◽  
Significant Seasonal Variation ◽  
Cadmium Selenium ◽  
High Degree

AbstractCoal mining and ancillary activities have the potential to cause water pollution characterized by acid mine drainage, acid mine leachates, extreme pH conditions and heavy metal contaminations. In the present work, 33 water samples in premonsoon and 34 water samples in monsoon were collected from the surface water bodies of Ib Valley coalfield, India for hydrogeochemical analysis. In premonsoon, pH, TSS, Turbidity, DO, BOD, COD, Magnesium, Cadmium, Selenium, Nickel, Aluminum and in monsoon, pH, TSS, Turbidity, DO, BOD, COD, Iron, Cadmium, Selenium, Nickel and Aluminum were nonconforming to the permissible limit set by the Bureau of Indian Standards, World Health Organisation and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India. The average BOD/COD ratio of less than 0.6 in both seasons indicated Ib valley coalfield water was not fairly biodegradable. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that significant seasonal variation (p < 0.05) was observed in the hydro-chemical parameters viz. TSS, turbidity, redox potential, acidity, total hardness, bicarbonate alkalinity, chloride, sulfate, nitrate, sodium, calcium, magnesium, iron, cadmium, chromium and magnesium during the entire sampling period. Whereas, no significant seasonal variation (p > 0.05) was observed in pH, EC, TDS, DO, BOD, residual chlorine, COD, oil and grease, fluoride, potassium, zinc, copper, selenium, nickel, aluminum, boron, silica, temperature, salinity, cyanide and phenol. Water Quality Index revealed that 39.39% and 35.29% samples belong to poor water quality category in premonsoon and monsoon, respectively. As per Heavy Metal Pollution Index, Degree of Contamination (Cd) and Heavy metal evaluation index, medium degree of pollution were exhibited by 51.52%, 30.30% and 45.45% samples in premonsoon and 20.59%, 35.29% and 26.47% samples in monsoon. Whereas, 5.88%, 2.94% and 5.88% samples were having high degree of pollution in monsoon and 15.15% samples caused high degree of pollution with respect to Cd in premonsoon. However, EC, Na%, PI, SAR and RSC values suggested that the water can be used for irrigation. Water type of the region had been found to be Ca–Mg–Cl–SO4 by Piper diagram.

Change in biomass of benthic and planktonic algae along a disturbance gradient for 24 Great Lakes coastal wetlands

2003 ◽  
Vol 60 (6) ◽  
pp. 676-689 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheila A McNair ◽  
Patricia Chow-Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Chlorophyll A ◽  
Total Variation ◽  
Coastal Wetlands ◽  
Phytoplankton Biomass ◽  
Wetland Management ◽  
Percent Cover ◽  
Planktonic Algae ◽  
Wide Range

We quantified the chlorophyll a content of planktonic algae and benthic algae in periphyton on acrylic rods and in epiphyton growing on macrophytes in 24 coastal wetlands in all five Laurentian Great Lakes. Sites were selected to represent a wide range of environmental conditions ranging from nutrient-poor, clear-water marshes with abundant macrophytes to nutrient-enriched, turbid systems devoid of aquatic vegetation. Water quality and species and percent cover of submergent macrophytes were measured in each wetland. Principal components analysis (PCA) showed that total phosphorus, turbidity, and suspended solids, variables associated with human-induced degradation, were most strongly correlated with PC axis 1 (PC1), accounting for 69% of the total variation. The PC1 site score was significantly related to both periphyton and phytoplankton biomass, respectively accounting for 54 and 70% of the total variation in periphyton and phytoplankton data, whereas PC1 only accounted for 18% of the variation in epiphyton biomass. Periphytic and epiphytic biomass were negatively correlated with percent cover and species richness of submergent macrophytes, but phytoplankton biomass was not. We conclude that periphytic and planktonic chlorophyll a biomass are good indicators of human-induced water-quality degradation and recommend that both benthic and planktonic algal biomass should be routinely monitored as part of an effective wetland management program.

The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreements

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Langston
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Water Quality ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Joint Commission ◽  
International Joint Commission ◽  
International Joint ◽  
The 1960S

By the 1960s, the failures of research and cooperative pragmatism to control Great Lakes pollution were becoming painfully evident. In 1972 Canada and the United States signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The agreement was groundbreaking in its focus on cleaning up existing pollution and preventing new pollutants, but the International Joint Commission has no authority to force the two nations to implement recommendations. Therefore, when Canada or the United States refuses to abide by the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (in its various revisions), very little happens in response—besides calls for more research.

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