Estimation of lake whitefish spawning stock abundance using close-kin mark-recapture

Grant: # 2009

Grant Amount: $238,242.40

Board Decision Year: 2023

University of Vermont - Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources (Burlington)

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources

Marcy-Quay, Benjamin ([email protected]) 7348913533

2023 Ecosystem Health and Sustainable Fish Populations: Ecological and Biological Research to Inform Management - Ecological and biological fisheries research to inform management

Project Summary

Lake Michigan stock assessments for lake whitefish suggest an adult abundance peak in the mid-2000’s, with estimates pointing to a steep decline in recent years due to decreased recruitment. We propose to explore this trend and validate current assessment models for a representative stock over the 2000-2018 period using close-kin mark-recapture, a fishery-independent method of estimating adult dynamics using observed kinship frequencies from archived tissue samples.