Occurrence of the Acanthocephalan Leptorhynchoides thecatus in Slimy Sculpins—A New Host Record

A new host (Cottus cognatus) for adults of the acanthocephalan Leptorhynchoides thecatus (Linton) is reported. Of 176 slimy sculpins examined from eastern Lake Michigan, 93% were infected by L. thecatus. The number of L. thecatus infecting slimy sculpins was directly related to size of fish. Mean number of L. thecatus per fish was 17 for males, 10 for females, and 3 for immatures. One male was infected with 132 L. thecatus.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141417/1/tafs0142.pd

Gilling in Trap‐Net Pots and Use of Catch Data to Predict Lake Whitefish Gilling Rates

Gilling of lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) and lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) in trapnet pots was investigated for three commercial nets set during the fall of 1980 in northern Lake Huron. Approximately 73% of observed giliing occurred as nets were being lifted. Consequently, high percentages of gilled fish were alive when fishermen harvested their catch. More than two‐thirds of the gilled fish were located in side netting, while smaller proportions of gilled fish were found in the back, front, top, and bottom of the pot. A regression model was developed to predict the number of lake whitefish gilled based on total catch. Independent variables for the statistically significant (P < 0.001) model were the number of lake whitefish caught and the square root of the number of lake trout in the pot. Lake whitefish schooling behavior associated with the approach of spawning season was regarded as an important factor in explaining gilling rates. The number of gilled whitefish could be reduced by increasing the frequency of net lifts if it were found to be economically feasible.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141650/1/nafm0294.pd

Changes in Diet and Body Condition of Lake Whitefish in Southern Lake Michigan Associated with Changes in Benthos

We evaluated the long‐term trends of the benthic macroinvertebrate community (1980–1999) and biological attributes of lake whitefish Coregonus clupeaformis (1985–1999) in southeastern Lake Michigan. We also determined what food types were important to lake whitefish in an area where the amphipod Diporeia had not yet declined in 1998 and how the diet of lake whitefish changed as Diporeia declined during 1999–2000. Zebra mussels Dreissena polymorpha invaded the study area in 1992; Diporeia began to decline in 1993 and was nearly absent by 1999. The body condition of lake whitefish decreased after 1993 and remained low thereafter. The length at age and weight at age of lake whitefish was lower in 1992–1999 than in 1985–1991. After declines of Diporeia off the city of Muskegon, Michigan, between 1998 and 1999–2000, the proportion of Diporeia in the diet by weight fell from 70% to 25% and the percent occurrence decreased from 81% to 45%. In contrast, the proportion of lake whitefish that ate other prey, such as Mysis relicta (an opossum shrimp), ostracods, oligochaetes, and zooplankton, increased in the same period. At sites south of Muskegon, where the density of Diporeia has been low since 1998, chironomids, zebra mussels, and fingernail clams (Shaeriidae family) were the most important diet items of lake whitefish. Decreases in body condition and growth are associated with the loss of the high‐energy prey resource Diporeia, the consumption of prey with lower energy content, such as zebra mussels, and possible density‐dependence. Commercial harvests of lake whitefish will probably decrease because of low body condition and growth. Future management may require changes in harvest quotas, size restrictions, and depth restrictions as zebra mussel‐related impacts spread northward in Lake Michigan.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142050/1/nafm0876.pd

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Observations and modeling of fish gilling in commercial trap-net pots

Master of ScienceNatural Resources and EnvironmentUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/114765/1/39015003274357.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/114765/2/39015003274357.pd

Lake Whitefish and \u3ci\u3eDiporeia\u3c/i\u3e spp. in the Great Lakes: An Overview

Because of growing concern in the Great Lakes over declines in abundance and growth of lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) and declines in abundance of the benthic amphipod Diporeia spp., a workshop was held to examine past and current trends, to explore trophic links, and to discuss the latest research results and needs. The workshop was divided into sessions on the status of populations in each of the lakes, bioenergetics and trophic dynamics, and exploitation and management. Abundance, growth, and condition of whitefish populations in Lakes Superior and Erie are stable and within the range of historical means, but these variables are declining in Lakes Michigan and Ontario and parts of Lake Huron. The loss of Diporeia spp., a major food item of whitefish, has been a factor in observed declines, particularly in Lake Ontario, but density-dependent factors also likely played a role in Lakes Michigan and Huron. The loss of Diporeia spp. is temporally linked to the introduction and proliferation of dreissenid mussels, but a direct cause for the negative response of Diporeia spp. has not been established. Given changes in whitefish populations, age-structured models need to be re-evaluated. Other whitefish research needs to include a better understanding of what environmental conditions lead to strong year-classes, improved aging techniques, and better information on individual population (stock) structure. Further collaborations between assessment biologists and researchers studying the lower food web would enhance an understanding of links between trophic levels

Preliminary Evaluation of a Lake Whitefish (\u3ci\u3eCoregonus clupeaformis\u3c/i\u3e) Bioenergetics Model

We conducted a preliminary evaluation of a lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) bioenergetics model by applying the model to size-at-age data for lake whitefish from northern Lake Michigan. We then compared estimates of gross growth efficiency (GGE) from our bioenergetics model with previously published estimates of GGE for bloater (C. hoyi) in Lake Michigan and for lake whitefish in Quebec. According to our model, the GGE of Lake Michigan lake whitefish decreased from 0.075 to 0.02 as age increased from 2 to 5 years. In contrast, the GGE of lake whitefish in Quebec inland waters decreased from 0.12 to 0.05 for the same ages. When our swimming-speed submodel was replaced with a submodel that had been used for lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) in Lake Michigan and an observed predator energy density for Lake Michigan lake whitefish was employed, our model predicted that the GGE of Lake Michigan lake whitefish decreased from 0.12 to 0.04 as age increased from 2 to 5 years

Dreissenid mussels are not a “dead end” in Great Lakes food webs

Dreissenid mussels have been regarded as a “dead end” in Great Lakes food webs because the degree of predation on dreissenid mussels, on a lakewide basis, is believed to be low. Waterfowl predation on dreissenid mussels in the Great Lakes has primarily been confined to bays, and therefore its effects on the dreissenid mussel population have been localized rather than operating on a lakewide level. Based on results from a previous study, annual consumption of dreissenid mussels by the round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) population in central Lake Erie averaged only 6 kilotonnes (kt; 1 kt=one thousand metric tons) during 1995–2002. In contrast, our coupling of lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) population models with a lake whitefish bioenergetics model revealed that lake whitefish populations in Lakes Michigan and Huron consumed 109 and 820 kt, respectively, of dreissenid mussels each year. Our results indicated that lake whitefish can be an important predator on dreissenid mussels in the Great Lakes, and that dreissenid mussels do not represent a “dead end” in Great Lakes food webs. The Lake Michigan dreissenid mussel population has been estimated to be growing more than three times faster than the Lake Huron dreissenid mussel population during the 2000s. One plausible explanation for the higher population growth rate in Lake Michigan would be the substantially higher predation rate by lake whitefish on dreissenid mussels in Lake Huron

Impact of Double-Crested Cormorant Predation on the Yellow Perch Population in the Les Cheneaux Islands of Michigan

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources, in conjunction with the University of Michigan and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, initiated a research study to determine the impact of double-crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) on the yellow perch (Perca flavescens) population in the Les Cheneaux Islands area of northern Lake Huron. Aerial and nesting colony counts were conducted to monitor cormorant abundance. Creel census counts and tagging of 8,400 perch were used to study perch abundance. We collected 373 cormorants to study food habits via stomach-content analysis. We found that (1) cormorants fed heavily on yellow perch in early spring, but over the entire season only 10 percent of their diet was perch; (2) alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus) and sticklebacks (Culaea inconstans, Pungitius pungitius, Gasterosteus aculeatus) made up the major portion of the cormorants’ diet; (3) cormorants removed only 2.3 percent of the available perch biomass (v. 1.8 percent by anglers over the same period); (4) most fish taken by cormorants were less than 150 mm long; (5) total annual perch mortality was about 45 percent, of which less than 9 percent was due to cormorants; and (6) cormorants accounted for only 0.8 percent of the mortality of legal-size perch (≥178 mm), whereas summer sport fishing accounted for 2.5 percent. Thus, although the impact of cormorants on the perch population may vary slightly from year to year, we conclude that cormorant predation had minimal impact on the local perch population

Dynamics of the Lake Michigan food web, 1970–2000

Herein, we document changes in the Lake Michigan food web between 1970 and 2000 and identify the factors responsible for these changes. Control of sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) and alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) populations in Lake Michigan, beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, had profound effects on the food web. Recoveries of lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) and burbot (Lota lota) populations, as well as the buildup of salmonine populations, were attributable, at least in part, to sea lamprey control. Based on our analyses, predation by salmonines was primarily responsible for the reduction in alewife abundance during the 1970s and early 1980s. In turn, the decrease in alewife abundance likely contributed to recoveries of deepwater sculpin (Myoxocephalus thompsoni), yellow perch (Perca flavescens), and burbot populations during the 1970s and 1980s. Decrease in the abundance of all three dominant benthic macroinvertebrate groups, including Diporeia, oligochaetes, and sphaeriids, during the 1980s in nearshore waters (≤50 m deep) of Lake Michigan, was attributable to a decrease in primary production linked to a decline in phosphorus loadings. Continued decrease in Diporeia abundance during the 1990s was associated with the zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) invasion, but specific mechanisms for zebra mussels affecting Diporeia abundance remain unidentified