Brown,Taylor, Lars G Rudstam, Suresh A Sethi, JB Smith, JX He, JL Jonas, SJH Beech, ES Dunlop, SA Pothoven, ZJ Amidon, JA Sweka, DD Carl, SP Hansen, DB Bunnell, BC Weidel, AE Honsey. 2026. Drivers of population dynamics vary across biophysical gradients and after ecosystem regime shifts for a freshwater fish. Ecosphere 17:e70807.
Summary: This highly collaborative project led by Dr Taylor Brown as part of her PhD work at DNRE with Suresh Sethi and Lars Rudstam used long term data from state, federal, provincial and tribal fisheries in both agencies in both the US and Canada on the culturally and commercially important lake whitefish. Data on fish annual recruitment since the 1980s were compared with information on the biological and physical variables that are hypothesized to affect lake whitefish recruitment to disentangle global and local drivers of recruitment. Results emphasize the role of major ecosystem regime shifts associated with oligotrophication and quagga mussel invasions. Climatic changes such as warming temperatures and decreasing ice cover were also important broad scale drivers. This research informs management of this important fish and its fishery. Taylor is now a postdoctoral associate with the Great Lake Fisheries Commission continuing her work on Great Lakes fish.
