Feasibility of acoustic telemetry for exploring the spatial ecology of Round Goby in Lake Huron

RGPLT

September 2018 - December 2020

Seasonal changes in depth-habitat use determined from bottom trawl surveys suggest that Round Goby in the Great Lakes move from nearshore areas during the summer to offshore areas during the winter. This behavior has important implications for goby interactions with native, deepwater fish species and estimation of population size, but direct observation of inshore-offshore migration by Round Goby is lacking. Low recapture rates of marked individuals make use of standard mark-recapture methods problematic for quantifying fish movement in large ecosystems like the Great Lakes. Recent miniaturization of acoustic tags has opened the door to studies focused on the movement ecology of small-bodied fish like Round Goby. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of acoustic telemetry as tool for quantifying the extent and timing of inshore-offshore migration by Round Goby.

• Determine effects of acoustic tag size and attachment method on Round Goby survival
• Evaluate the performance of an acoustic array designed for tracking inshore-offshore movement of acoustic-tagged round goby in Lake Huron

• Knowledge of the extent and timing of Round Goby migration is needed to better understand the potential for goby interactions ecologically-similar native species such as sculpin and to determine when gobies are most vulnerable to bottom trawls, which are used to survey fish abundance in Lake Huron but do not work well in rocky, nearshore habitats where gobies spend their summers.

• Darryl Hondorp (United States Geological Survey) - dhondorp@usgs.gov
• Christopher Holbrook (United States Geological Survey - Hammond Bay Biological Station)
• Aaron Fisk (University Of Windsor - Great Lakes Institute For Environmental Research)

• United States Geological Survey - Great Lakes Science Center
• University of Windsor

• United States Geological Survey - Great Lakes Science Center
• Great Lakes Acoustic Telemetry Observation System (GLATOS)