**The title, authors, and abstract for this completion report are provided below.  For a copy of the completion report, please contact the GLFC via e-mail or via telephone at 734-662-3209**

 

 

Inter-stream Movements of Sea Lamprey and Selected Non-target Fishes in Response to Sea Lamprey Barriers

  

I. J. Dolinsek 1, R. L. McLaughlin 2, J. W. A. Grant 1, L. O'Connor 3, and T. Pratt 3

 1Biology Department, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, H4B 1R6

2 Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1

 3 Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 1 Canal Dr., Sault Ste. Marie, ON, P6A 6W4

 

Abstract

This study quantified the degree to which sea lamprey and selected, native teleost fishes moved between six adjacent streams located on the north shore of Lake Ontario, both within (sea lamprey and teleost fishes) and among (teleost fishes) reproductive seasons. The degree of movement at this spatial extent is poorly understood, yet is expected to be important to ecological (e.g, metapopulation dynamics, responses to habitat fragmentation) and micro-evolutionary processes (e.g., gene flow). Movements of fishes moving naturally, and following translocation to new sites, were monitored using PITtagging and tracking technology. Sea lamprey and 11 of 23 teleost fishes moved between tributaries via Lake Ontario. The frequency of inter-stream movements was low overall and varied among species. Most inter-stream movements were made between immediately adjacent streams and some streams were net importers of fishes while other were net exporters. Sea lamprey caught, tagged, and released within a stream exhibited frequencies of inter-stream movements comparable to the stream sampling movements made by sea lamprey released in the lake off of the mouths of the study streams. With teleost fishes, reproductive homing and site fidelity partly explain the low frequency of inter-stream movements. Fish assemblages in these Lake Ontario catchments exchange individuals at rates likely to be important for metapopulation dynamics and gene flow, but unlikely to allow populations to behaviourally respond en masse to in-stream structures that block movement.