Lake Superior Fish Diet Study
GLIFWC interns lifting a gill net on Gichigami (Lake Superior)
As part of its Climate Change Program, GLIFWC is conducting a dietary study of lake trout, siscowet trout, and whitefish to bring greater understanding of Lake Superior’s food web and provide data needed for ecosystem models. GLIFWC accomplishes the sampling for this unique study through by obtaining stomach samples from tribal commercial fishers in areas around the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan waters of Lake Superior. With their cooperation, GLIFWC has thus far collected over 1,000 samples.
This baseline information on seasonal diets and additional data to be collected as the study continues will allow GLIFWC to track changes that may occur over time. GLIFWC hopes to understand how climate change impacts – including warmer lake temperatures and a drastic decline in winter lake ice – may affect food webs, species composition, and species distribution.
To read more about GLIFWC’s fish diet study in Gichiigamii, go to Mazina’igan, GLIFWC’s quarterly newspaper:
“Tracking changes in Lake Superior fish diets” http://www.glifwc.org/Mazinaigan/Spring2016/index.html?page=4
“Whitefish study tracks Gichigami food web” |
