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The offshore fish community of Lake Ontario is presently dominated by intensively managed, nonnative species: Alewife Alosa pseudoharengus and rainbow smelt Osmerus mordax at the planktivore level and stocked salmonines at the piscivore level. Salmonine stocking rates per unit area of Lake Ontario are the highest in the Great Lakes, and fishery managers are concerned about the sustainability of the fishery under present stocking policies, particularly with the recent collapse of the Lake Michigan fishery for chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha. In this paper, we describe and present the results of a simulation model that integrates predator demand estimates derived from bioenergetics, prey and predator population dynamics, and a predation model based on the multiple‐species functional response, Model reconstructions of historical alewife biomass trends and salmonine diets corresponded reasonably well with existing data for the period 1978–1992. The simulations suggest that current predator demand does not exceed the threshold beyond which alewife biomass cannot be sustained, but they indicate that the sustainability of the prey fish community is extremely sensitive to fluctuations in overwinter survival of alewife; an additional mortality of 25% in a single winter would be sufficient to cause the collapse of the alewife population. The model includes a number of assumptions and simplifications with a limited empirical basis; better estimates of salmonine survival rates, an evaluation of the importance of spatial and temporal interactions among predators and prey, and incorporation of the effects of recently observed declines in system productivity at lower trophic levels would significantly increase confidence in the modelˈs projections.

Factors regulating year-class strength in the percid genera Stizostedion and Perca are summarized. Some index of water temperature regime correlates significantly with year-class strength of percids in many water bodies. Moderate synchrony of year-class strength is noted for walleye (Stizostedion vitreum vitreum) in several lakes in North America. A probablistic model is proposed to explain the basis of temperature dependence of year-class strength in percids, but tests of the model using Lake Erie data indicated that observed correlations between temperature and year-class strength of yellow perch (Perca flavescens) and walleye may not be the result of direct effects of the temperature regime on survivorship of early life-history phases. Key words: Percidae, year-class strength, temperature, probalistic model, early life history

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[1] A model is proposed for optimizing the net benefits of removing multiple dams in U.S. watersheds of Lake Erie by quantifying impacts upon social, ecological, and economic objectives of importance to managers and stakeholders. Explicit consideration is given to the linkages between newly accessible tributary habitat and the lake's ecosystem. The model is a mixed integer linear program (MILP) that selects a portfolio of potential dam removals that could achieve the best possible value of a weighted sum of the objective(s), while still satisfying the constraints. Using response functions extracted from the Lake Erie Ecological Model and an empirical cost model, the MILP accounts for ecological and economic effects of habitat changes for both desirable native walleye and undesirable sea lamprey. The solutions show the effect on removal decisions of alternative prioritizations among cost and environmental objectives and the resulting trade-offs among those objectives. The MILP can be used as a screening model to identify portfolios of dam removals that are potentially cost-effective enhancements of habitat and the Lake Erie ecosystem; subsequent site-specific studies would be needed prior to actually removing dams.

Numerical classifications and principal components ordinations were performed on species from 57 weekly samples of phytoplankton from Lake Wingra. The data were considered in absolute and relative terms before and after transformation to presence/absence and logarithmic quantities. The data were also analyzed, taking into account growth rates in the samples, by means of a transformation that replaced the scores of species present by the productivity of the sample as determined by C11 uptake/biomass. It is shown that different transformations can reveal different but biologically meaningful aspects of the data. These different biological aspects are species similarities based on either short-term survival expedients in particular environmental circumstances, species tactics, or long-range growth patterns, involving breadth of tolerance and place in the community, that is, species stratagems. Most phytoplankton species in Lake Wingra adopt one of three stratagems: either ungrazed, slow-growing and very persistent, or ungrazed, fast-growing and of intermediate duration, or grazed fastgrowing and ephemeral. Tactical information is relevant to particular systems, while strategic information is needed in ecosystem comparison and for models applicable to several systems.

Abstract. Human West Nile virus (WNV) infection was first detected in Cuyahoga county, Ohio, USA, in 2002. During that year's extensive epidemic/epizootic among non-immune human and bird populations, the county experienced 155 cases of severe human West Nile neurological disease (WNND, incidence = 11.1 cases/100,000), with 11 fatalities. Structured serosurveys indicated that 1.9%, or ~ 26,000 of county residents (population = 1,372,303) were infected that year. In early 2003, in order to better focus monitoring and control efforts, we used a geographical information system (GIS) approach and spatial statistical analysis to identify the association of environmental factors and human population structure with the observed local risk for WNV transmission. Within the varied range of urban/suburban/rural habitats across the 1186 km 2 county, exploratory analysis indicated significant clustering of WNND risk in inner-ring suburbs. Subsequent discriminant factor analysis based on inputs of census and land-use/land cover data was found to effectively classify sub-areas of the county having low, medium and high WNV risk. On a 1036 ha quadrat scale of resolution, higher risk of human infection was significantly associated with higher-income areas, increased fractionation of habitat and older housing, while it was negatively associated with areas of agricultural land, wetland or forest. The areal classification of WNV transmission risk has been validated over time through detection of increased local Culex spp. mosquito density (2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006), and increased frequency of WNV positive mosquito pools within the medium-and high-risk quadrats. This timely working identification of the transmission scale effectively focused control interventions against newly invasive WNV in a complex North American habitat.