Predation on Mysis relicta by Slimy Sculpins (Cottus cognatus) in Southern Lake Ontario

A short-term look at potential changes in Lake Michigan slimy sculpin diets

“…Kraft and Kitchell (1986) found no significant relationship between Mysis length in fish size. Mysis became more vulnerable to predation by sculpins when Mysis migrated to sediment bottoms during daylight (Grossnickle, 1982;Owens and Weber, 1995;Johannsson et al, 2001).…”

Feeding selectivity of slimy sculpin Cottus cognatus and deepwater sculpin Myoxocephalus thompsonii in southeast Lake Michigan: Implications for species coexistence

“…Our finding that Mysis was nearly always more selected by deepwater sculpin than by slimy sculpin accords well with this pattern and suggests that differential exploitation of Mysis is fundamental to the food resource partitioning dynamics of slimy and deepwater sculpin in Lake Michigan and possibly other Great Lakes as well. Selection for Diporeia was not always greater for slimy sculpin than for deepwater sculpin despite the historical dominance of this prey in the diets of Great Lakes slimy sculpin (Wells, 1980;Brandt, 1986;Selgeby, 1988;Owens and Weber, 1995). In contrast to deepwater sculpin, which are found only in a handful of cold-water lakes containing glacial relic prey such as Diporeia and/or Mysis (Sheldon et al, 2008), slimy sculpin have a broad North American distribution and are found in many cold-water ecosystems that do not contain Diporeia (Scott and Crossman, 1998).…”

Influence of water temperature and streambed stability on the abundance and distribution of slimy sculpin (Cottus cognatus)

“…The challenge to ecologists, therefore, is to examine naturally occurring populations and determine which set of habitat variables is influencing the density and distribution of their species of study. Rather than focusing on their distribution in relation to environmental variables, most previous studies of slimy sculpin (Cottus cognatus) fall into two camps: those of a primarily qualitative nature in which the presence/absence of fish and habitat characteristics were noted, and those investigating the impact of sculpin on benthic invertebrate communities and their predation on salmonid eggs and juvenile fish (Krohn 1968;Moyle 1977;Hudson et al 1995;Owens and Weber 1995). From these studies, however, we have learned that sculpin are highly sedentary benthic fish exhibiting limited mobility and possessing small home ranges (McCleave 1964;Morgan and Ringler 1992;Gray et al 2004).…”