Relative importance of macrophyte community versus water quality variables for predicting fish assemblages in coastal wetlands of the Laurentian Great Lakes

Influence of the aquatic vegetation landscape on larval fish abundance

“…Among these, it was recently suggested that AV was consistently a better predictor of fish community composition than water quality variables (Cvetkovic et al, 2010). For instance, empirical studies have found that fish larvae in freshwater AV beds could be as much as 160 times more abundant than in adjacent open waters, and that larvae concentrate inside aquatic plant beds rather than in the transition zones between open and vegetated habitats (Paller, 1987;Deaton et al, 2010).…”

“…In addition to total biomass, AV community composition can also affect fish distribution (Chick and Mclvor, 1994;Weaver et al, 1997;Cvetkovic et al, 2010;Silva et al, 2013). Given that remote sensing and aerial imagery are becoming more available, the use of image texture metrics as a proxy of AV community composition may also provide additional and valuable information to evaluate the effect of AV landscape on fish communities.…”

Fisheries

“…The sum of all of these habitat-specific niches determines the assemblage of fish taxa in lakes (Tonn and Magnuson 1982). Though species-specific habitat requirements can be difficult to completely define (although see Lewin et al 2014), the most sustainable and diverse fish communities are typically found in lakes containing intact, natural habitats with abundant woody habitat and unaltered plant communities and substrates (Smokorowski and Pratt 2007;Cvetkovic et al 2010).…”

Effect of aquatic macrophyte cover and fetch on spatial variability in the biomass and growth of littoral fishes in bays of Prince Edward County, Lake Ontario

“…The composition and areal extent of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in littoral areas of the Great Lakes influences the composition and abundance of nearshore fishes (Jude and Pappas, 1992;Wei et al, 2004;Cvetkovic et al, 2009). Since the mid-1970s, the fish community of the Bay of Quinte (BoQ) has undergone successive changes, initially in response to excessive nutrient loading followed by point-source phosphorus control Hurley et al, 1986), and more recently to colonization by Dreissena (Casselman et al, 1999; Functional links between macrophytes and fish production is both species and life-stage dependent.…”