Fish community indices of ecosystem health: How does the Bay of Quinte compare to other coastal sites in Lake Ontario?

Brousseau, C. M.; Randall, Robert G.; Hoyle, James A.; Minns, Charles K.

doi:10.1080/14634988.2011.547331

Cited by 21 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 18 publications

(34 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…PPB is also greater than 0.20, in nearshore and offshore habitats, a benchmark value identified by Hurley et al (1986) below which severe depreciation of the Bay of Quinte fish community occurred. Consistent with Brousseau et al (2011), the Bay of Quinte fish community currently appears to be indicative of a healthy ecosystem. Looking forward, nutrient input issues and new invasions, in addition to and in the context of broad-scale environmental stressors such as climate change, will mean continued management challenges for the Bay of Quinte ecosystem.…”

Section: Management Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 52%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Fish community structure in the Bay of Quinte, Lake Ontario: The influence of nutrient levels and invasive species

Hoyle

Bowlby

Brousseau

et al. 2012

Aquatic Ecosystem Health &Amp; Management

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Intensive, long-term sampling in the Bay of Quinte with multiple gears (i.e. gill nets, bottom trawls, trap nets and boat electrofishing) allowed examination of the fish community and major fish populations in the context of key stressors up to 2009. Excessive nutrient input and hyper-abundant non-native fish species, White Perch and Alewife, shaped the depreciated fish community of the 1970s. After implementation of phosphorus input control measures and simultaneous winter-kills of the hyper-abundant non-native fish in the late 1970s, Walleye recovered and served to restore a predator-prey balance to the fish community by the late 1980s. However, in the absence of a significant recovery of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in littoral areas, off-shore species (e.g. Alewife and White Perch) still tended to dominate; even in littoral areas. Following establishment of Dreissenid Mussels in the mid-1990s, water transparency increased and SAV increased significantly in littoral areas. This pivotal event led to a shift in the fish community that included an overall decline in Walleye, an increase followed by a decrease in Yellow Perch, and dominance by centrarchids (i.e. Bluegill, Pumpkinseed, Black Crappie and Largemouth Bass) in the nearshore. Round Goby invaded in 1999, proliferated and became important in the diet of piscivores by 2003. The current species assemblage, including the piscivores, is diverse and indicative of a healthy fish community.

show abstract

Section: Management Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 52%

“…Catch data were collected from 100 m transects at 1.5 m depth at several fixed locations representing a variety of coastal habitat types. Sampling was conducted periodically (1989-1990, 1992, 1999, 2001, 2007 and 2009), depending on Remedial Action Plan (RAP) needs (Brousseau et al, 2011).…”

Section: Sampling Programsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fish community structure in the Bay of Quinte, Lake Ontario: The influence of nutrient levels and invasive species

Hoyle

Bowlby

Brousseau

et al. 2012

Aquatic Ecosystem Health &Amp; Management

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the development of IBIs, it is important that a broad environmental gradient, including relatively pristine, or the best available reference conditions, be used (Seilheimer, 2009;Brousseau et al, 2011). The lack of transferability of these IBIs may have been related to the lack of truly pristine sites during original IBI development, the narrow disturbance gradient of the inland-lakes, differences between the Great Lakes coastal wetlands and the small, inland-lake wetlands, small sample sizes used to Figure 2.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Application and transferability of Great Lakes coastal wetland indices of biotic integrity to high quality inland lakes of Beaver Island in northern Lake Michigan

Calabro

Murry

Woolnough

et al. 2013

Aquatic Ecosystem Health &Amp; Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Biological indicators or indices of biotic integrity (IBI) have been developed for land managementand regulatory agencies to categorize the condition of a given ecosystem. IBIs are more widely used in lotic systems and those that can be used over wide geographic regions or multiple systems are deemed most valuable. Lacustrine wetlands have intrinsic complexity and multidimensionality making them very difficult to classify. This, in turn, greatly affects the transferability of indices created for explicit regions and wetland types. Similarly, due to scarcity, relatively pristine reference conditions are seldom included in IBI calibration and represent a critical end of the disturbance continuum.The robustness and transferability of macroinvertebrate and fish IBIs created for fringing lacustrine and drowned river mouth wetlands of the Great Lakes for use in wetlands occurring in inland-lakes on islands within the Great Lakes were tested. Islands within the Laurentian Great Lakes contain unique and critical habitats that have received little attention, but also require specialized tools for monitoring and management. Inland-lake wetlands of Beaver Island, Lake Michigan, were ranked a priori along a disturbance gradient based on adjacent land use/cover. Transferability of the pre-existing Great Lakes IBIs was determined by correlating the site-specific IBI rank with the site-specific disturbance ranks. Results indicated that the IBIs were not directly transferable and may require substantial modification.

show abstract

“…A value of 0 is only obtained when the sampling effort produces no fish. Catches of one or a few fish from one species will produce IBI values >0 (Brousseau et al ., ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Status and Trends in Biotic Integrity in a Sub‐Tropical River Drainage: Analysis of the Fish Assemblage Over a Three Decade Period

Moncayo‐Estrada

Lyons²,

Ramírez-Herrejón

et al. 2014

River Research & Apps

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We characterized the biotic integrity of the sub‐tropical Duero River, Mexico, comparing current and past index of biotic integrity (IBI) scores with results of an environmental quality index (EQI), inventorying abiotic characteristics and human impacts, and documenting ecosystem changes over the last three decades. We sampled the fish community and measured environmental variables during the dry season of 2009 at 19 sites. We compared 2009 findings with fish data obtained in 1986 and 1991 at nine of the sites. The correlation between the IBI and EQI was high (r2 = 0.79, p = 0.0002), indicating that the IBI accurately characterized environmental condition. Thirteen sites were degraded (68%) based on IBI scores, three were fair (16%) and three had good conditions (16%). Based on the EQI, 12 sites were classified as poor (63%), two as fair (11%) and five as good (19%). A cluster analysis of nine abiotic variables and the IBI values yielded three groups: six sites with good integrity and environmental quality, eight with high chemical oxygen demand and four with high total dissolved solids. A discriminant analysis (square canonical correlation: 0.922, and Wilks' lambda significance: 0.001) identified biochemical oxygen demand, distance to vegetation and total dissolved solids as the main predictors. Compared to 1986 and 1991, 2009 IBI values and ratings had declined significantly (multiple response permutation procedure A = 0.16, p = 0.0005), indicating a trend of environmental deterioration, with scores and ratings at 7 of 9 sites lower in 2009. One site had declined from good to fair, one from good to poor, five from fair to poor, one had remained fair and one had remained good. Degradation was related to excessive human water use, reduced river flows, increased wastewater discharge, deforestation, erosion, and invasive species, and mismanagement of preserved sites (springs), all of which highlight an urgent need to reverse declining environmental conditions. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

show abstract

Fish community indices of ecosystem health: How does the Bay of Quinte compare to other coastal sites in Lake Ontario?

Cited by 21 publications

References 18 publications

Fish community structure in the Bay of Quinte, Lake Ontario: The influence of nutrient levels and invasive species

Fish community structure in the Bay of Quinte, Lake Ontario: The influence of nutrient levels and invasive species

Application and transferability of Great Lakes coastal wetland indices of biotic integrity to high quality inland lakes of Beaver Island in northern Lake Michigan

Status and Trends in Biotic Integrity in a Sub‐Tropical River Drainage: Analysis of the Fish Assemblage Over a Three Decade Period

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About