Geology Reports⌕ Search
Home/Archive/USGS

USGS · 70190155

Seasonal trends in eDNA detection and occupancy of bigheaded carps

Richard A. Erickson·Christopher M. Merkes·Craig Jackson·Reuben Goforth·Jon Amberg
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Bigheaded carps, which include silver and bighead carp, are threatening to invade the Great Lakes. These species vary seasonally in distribution and abundance due to environmental conditions such as precipitation and temperature. Monitoring this seasonal movement is important for management to control the population size and spread of the species. We examined if environmental DNA (eDNA) approaches could detect seasonal changes of these species. To do this, we developed a novel genetic marker that was able to both detect and differentiate bighead and silver carp DNA. We used the marker, combined with a novel occupancy model, to study the occurrence of bigheaded carps at 3 sites on the Wabash River over the course of a year. We studied the Wabash River because of concerns that carps may be able to use the system to invade the Great Lakes via a now closed (ca. 2017) connection at Eagle Marsh between the Wabash River's watershed and the Great Lakes' watershed. We found seasonal trends in the probability of detection and occupancy that varied across sites. These findings demonstrate that eDNA methods can detect seasonal changes in bigheaded carps densities and suggest that the amount of eDNA present changes seasonally. The site that was farthest upstream and had the lowest carp densities exhibited the strongest seasonal trends for both detection probabilities and sample occupancy probabilities. Furthermore, other observations suggest that carps seasonally leave this site, and we were able to detect this with our eDNA approach.

Explore related subjects

Journal of Great Lakes ResearchArticle

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Richard A. Erickson, Christopher M. Merkes, Craig Jackson, Reuben Goforth, Jon Amberg. 2017. Seasonal trends in eDNA detection and occupancy of bigheaded carps. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jglr.2017.06.003

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related USGS reports

USGS2026

Thermal habitat use of lake trout in Lake Erie

Understanding the thermal habitat use of fish populations is vital for effective rehabilitation or management, particularly in the face of climate change, given limited thermal tolerances of some species. In Lake Erie, lake trout ( Salvelinus namaycush ) rehabilitation efforts by means of stocking have been ongoing for four decades. However, high water temperatures and lengthening periods of stratification may be hindering reestablishment efforts by contributing to unfavorable conditions for spawning and natural recruitment. We used acoustic telemetry to quantify weekly temperature occupancy of adult lake trout in Lake Erie and evaluated whether temperature occupancy differed relative to fish total length and sex. We found that lake trout occupied water temperatures similar to temperatures occupied by other Great Lakes lake trout populations during summer stratification. During fall, lake trout in Lake Erie occupied warmer temperatures than Lake Huron populations but similar temperatures to Lake Ontario populations. Occupied temperatures decreased with increasing body size during a 7-week period of mid- to late-summer stratification, but not during early summer or fall. Male and female lake trout did not differ in weekly temperature occupancy during any season. These findings reveal similarities with successfully reproducing populations, which suggest that adult temperature occupancy is unlikely to be a major impediment to natural recruitment in Lake Erie.

Lake Erie↗
USGS2026

Documentation of giant floater (Pyganodon grandis) glochidia attached to larval lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) in the Laurentian Great Lakes

Native freshwater mussels (family Unionidae) are in decline globally, including in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Glochidia, the parasitic larvae of unionid mussels, typically attach to sub-adult and adult fishes. Attachment of glochidia to larval fishes is more rare, and a lack of documentation exists on glochidial attachment on fish in the Great Lakes in general. We document the attachment of four glochidia to three larval lake whitefish ( Coregonus clupeaformis ) in shallow waters of Lake Superior, and we genetically identified the glochidia as giant floater ( Pyganodon grandis ). We only observed glochidia at 3% of all sites sampled on ∼0.02% of all fish (∼15,000) collected across lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron. Although glochidial encystment on larval lake whitefish may be rare, it may also be difficult to detect with conventional sampling methods. Regardless, the association could have important implications for the ecology and conservation of both unionids and coregonines in the ever-changing Great Lakes.

Michigan, Ontario, Wisconsin↗
USGS2026

Bayesian hierarchical model of lake whitefish cohort strength from sparse trawl data

Recruitment indices for rare or intermittently recruiting fishes are needed to compare year classes and evaluate recruitment drivers, but sparse trawl data with many zero-catch observations complicate estimation. We used fall bottom trawl data from New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio surveys in Lake Erie's central and eastern basins to estimate annual relative cohort strength of age-0 lake whitefish ( Coregonus clupeaformis ) from 1992 to 2021 and evaluate whether a Bernoulli-Bernoulli presence-absence model retained enough information for an annual relative cohort strength index compared with a Binomial-Poisson count model. We fixed detection probability at 0.31 in the primary analysis and refit both models using alternative fixed values in sensitivity analyses. Among 2879 tows, 173 were positive and 368 fish were collected, with positive catches ranging from 1 to 20 fish. Annual catch per unit area and both models recovered a similar recruitment pattern, with variable recruitment from 1992 to 2005, little to no recruitment from 2006 to 2014, and renewed recruitment in most years from 2015 to 2021. Cohort rank order was stable across fixed detection values (Spearman r s = 0.996 to 1.000), and annual median estimates maintained high agreement with the primary analysis (Pearson r = 0.966 to 1.000). However, Bernoulli-Bernoulli estimates were not one-to-one with Binomial-Poisson estimates, and relative magnitude depended on assumed detection probability. These results indicate that the Bernoulli-Bernoulli simplification is adequate for recovering cohort strength patterns, but the Binomial-Poisson model is more appropriate for distinguishing relative cohort strength among years.

New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania↗