Project
Moving toward ecosystem-based fisheries management: Conceptualizing Lake Erie’s dynamic ecosystem
Achieving ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) is a long-standing goal within the Great Lakes. Further implementation of EBFM strategies requires the continued development of an empirical understanding of ecosystem structure and its environmental and socioeconomic drivers. Our previous projects initiated the IEA process by compiling and analyzing a large database of several hundred components of the Great Lakes ecosystem. The critical next step is to begin translating these findings into conceptual models that describe the network of connections among ecosystem components, including how they are influenced by external drivers. Toward this end, we will follow best practices from marine IEAs. We will first work with stakeholders to develop conceptual models of the life histories (e.g., larval and adult stages) of three focal taxa (walleye, Sander vitreus; yellow perch, Perca flavescens; and lake whitefish, Coregonus clupeaformis) in Lake Erie. We then will use semi-quantitative and quantitative techniques to evaluate, revise, and compare the structures of these conceptual models and identify key variables (e.g., factors included in the models or related variables) that can serve as indicators of the current state and impending change in the state of the focal species. Finally, we will use the models to evaluate the potential responses of the focal taxa to ecosystem and management scenarios identified by stakeholders. The outcome of our project will be a heightened ability of agencies to understand how the Lake Erie ecosystem and three key focal taxa function holistically, and improved forecasts of how continued ecosystem change could affect Lake Erie’s valued fisheries.