Hydroacoustic Projects
The 2009 hydroacoustic season will include a number of projects.
- Continuation of the Opeongo cisco survey in mid-summer providing indexes of year-class strength of cisco
- Surveys of lakes outside Algonquin Park to better understand fish size structure and distribution in exploited lakes
- Surveys in lake trout/brook trout lakes in Algonquin Park to compare to lakes outside Algonquin
The data collected in 2008 with the combined multibeam and splitbeam survyes is in the analysis and write-up phase. The plan for 2009 is to continue the multibeam work on some of the lakes outside and inside Algonquin Park to address questions related to predator-prey ecology in these ecosystems.
White Partridge Lake Cisco Ecology
White Partridge Lake in Algonquin Park sits in the historic Great Lakes drainage system that existed after glaciers receded in the last ice-age. It reportedly contains two species of cisco; lake herring/cisco (Coregonus artedi) and shortjaw cisco (Coregonus zenithicus). The shortjaw cisco is distributed widely in large lakes along the southern edge of Precambrian Shield landscapes from this southern point north into the territories of Canada. The distribution is disjunct and unusual. The purpose of this project is to determine the status and ecology of these two ciscoes in White Partridge Lake.
Lake Trout Surveys
A set of 25 lake trout lakes have been surveyed in Ontario and Quebec focusing on population estimation and spatial distribution of this top predator.
- What is the relationship between target strength and body size of this pelagic predator?
- Do population estimates based on mark-recapture methods and hydroacoustics match?
- How do indices of abundance obtained by index netting align with hydroacoustic population estimates?
- Does the spatial distribution of lake trout differ in lakes with different food webs?
Check out the image of a school of Opeongo cisco in Plate 3.5 of the second edition of "Fisheries Acoustics: Theory and Practice" by John Simmonds and David MacLennon.