Genetic Population Structure of Lake Whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) in Lake Huron

FWS Agreement Number

30181-8-G020

Study Objectives

1. Identify the number and location of genetic stocks of lake whitefish in Lake Huron.
2. Compare these results to existing stock boundaries to identify areas of agreement and discordance in stock designations.
3. Compare our results to those from an ongoing tagging study of lake whitefish in northern Lake Huron and to previous genetic analyses and try to reconcile differences. We have included in our sample sites areas that have been sampled during recent studies of Lake Michigan (VanDeHey et al. 2009) and Lake Huron; this will allow us to compare and integrate our results with other studies. The integration of various data sets will allow us to examine the consistency of results and to put the variation observed in Lake Huron into a broader geographic scale.
4. While there are several spawning grounds on the lake, sites at Alpena and the Fishing Islands are believed to be the primary sources of recruitment (Bence and Ebener 2002). To examine this, we will use collections of lake whitefish from Great Lakes Science Center assessment trawls performed in the spring and fall as a mixed sample and use assignment tests to determine the contribution of spawning grounds to the mixed sample.