Algonquin Lakes Acoustic Array

Listening in on where fish live

Interest in the movement of individuals and the kinds of new insights that come with highly accurate, rich location data is an exciting research area of animal ecology in terrestrial and aquatic environments.

Acoustic technology is now providing insights into the movement and habitat selection of aquatic vertebrates that could scarcely have been imagined just a decade ago. At Harkness, we have a number of VEMCO receivers to provide acoustic arrays in small to medium size lakes. This research area is an active one for us where we address a number of applied and basic questions in fish movement ecology.

Below are descriptions of projects utilizing our acoustic technology and the kinds of questions we addressed...

Brook Trout:

Ultrasonic transmitters were implanted into brook trout in Stringer and Scott Lakes in Algonquin Park in spring 2009. Transmitters were also implanted in common suckers in Stringer Lake.

The receiver arrays have been operating continuously since they were set up with data being downloaded in the spring and fall of each year. As of the last download, November 2010, over 700,000 location and depth fixes have been recorded for the fish in both lakes.

The purpose of the project is to:

The project began in 2009. The array will be removed from Scott Lake in the spring of 2011 but will remain operating in Stringer Lake until the fall of 2011.

Lake Trout II - Lake Opeongo:

Although an acoustic array was not employed in this project, the combination of multi-beam hydroacoustics and individual acoustic tags operating at the same frequency as the multi-beam unit provided a unique opportunity to track the locations of tagged lake trout in a large lake system - the South Arm of Lake Opeongo. Individuals appeared to show fidelity to specific areas and clearly demonstrated that cisco schools are attacked from beneath during foraging attempts.

Lake Opeongo Smallmouth Bass:

15 receivers were distributed throughout the main body of the South Arm to record the depth of individual smallmouth bass from year to year (Aug 2004 - May 2006) including overwinter periods under the ice. The results of this project provided many new observations of smallmouth bass seasonal behaviour that we did previously know. Depth variation is greatest in during the fall cooling period as bass appear to utilize the warming at depth to reach deeper in the lake for prey. Winter is a period of little movement while the period of spring equinox appears important for initiating the annual activity cycle. This includes a period in early spring where bass are very shallow prior to the reproductive season. Below is a publication from this project where there are additional details on daily and seasonal behaviour:

Lake Trout I - Louisa Lake:

The earliest work with VEMCO acoustic tags was on lake trout in Louisa Lake in Algonquin Park. The work was a combination of a traditional acoustic tagging study where fish location was manually searched and an acoustic array using 5 VEMCO receivers. Twenty lake trout were fitted with acoustic tags for the array (July-Aug 2003) and 17 lake trout were fitted with traditional acoustic tags. The acoustic array recorded depth of each of the 20 lake trout. Inidividuals frequently moved into habitat that was not their optimal temperature indicating that littoral prey were part of their diet with the possibility of alternative foraging tactics. Below is a publication from this project with more details:

Back To Aquatic Projects.