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Yield of Yellow Perch in Lakes Erie and St. Clair: Community Associations
Author(s) -
Henderson Bryan A.,
Nepszy Stephen J.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
transactions of the american fisheries society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.696
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1548-8659
pISSN - 0002-8487
DOI - 10.1577/1548-8659(1990)119<0741:yoypil>2.3.co;2
Subject(s) - perch , interspecific competition , structural basin , fishing , abundance (ecology) , community structure , fishery , habitat , geography , biomass (ecology) , ecology , biology , fish <actinopterygii> , paleontology
Commercial catches of yellow perch Perca flavescens in the Canadian gill‐net fishery of Lake Erie declined in the 1970s, even though fishing effort increased and mesh size decreased between 1970 and 1975. Multiple stepwise regression of annual catch (kg) on effort (km gill net), recruitment by year‐class, total fish community biomass, and weight at age 3 showed that only recruitment explained a significant portion of the variations in catches in the eastern basin, and only weight was important in the western basin. Year‐class strength declined in the late 1960s and 1970s; catches from both experimental and commercial gear provided some indication of improvement by the 1980s. Although recruitment was associated with variations in the abundance of some species in four fish communities (Lake St. Clair and the three basins of Lake Erie), there was no evidence that any common groups of species were regulating recruitment. Fish community structures were similar (discriminant function analysis) in the eastern and central basins; the western basin and St. Clair communities were different, but more similar to each other than to the other two basins. Temporal changes in community structure within basins were not associated with water temperature variables (canonical correlation). Temporal correlations of abundance were correlated with spatial correlations of abundance, indicating that negative interspecific interactions were greater for species with less overlap in habitat. We concluded that there was no evidence that interspecific interactions regulated community structure or yellow perch recruitment.