Grant: Canada Research Chairs

The Laurentian Great Lakes hold one-fifth of all fresh surface water on Earth, and are among the world’s largest, contain diverse habitats, and support significant biodiversity and ecosystem services. The health of the Great Lakes Basin is highly relevant to Canada and the United States, providing drinking water for >40 million people, supporting >1.5 million jobs and $60 billion in wages annually, and is the backbone of a $6 trillion regional economy that would rank as one of the world’s largest. Despite their importance, the vulnerability of the Great Lakes’ unique and diverse ecosystems is of significant concern as their ecology is changing dramatically due to natural and anthropogenic forces. Fisk’s CRC research program will broadly seek to understand the cumulative effects of anthropogenic stressors and management actions on Great Lakes ecosystems. Specifically, he will quantify the structure and function of aquatic food webs and the movement of fish across lakes, habitats, and time. This research will be integrated with environmental data collected continuously and in real-time using in situ cutting-edge instrumentation, to develop comprehensive ecosystem models. Fisk’s research will expand our understanding of Great Lakes and freshwater food webs and the methods used to assess them by taking a novel approach combining stable isotopes, acoustic telemetry, and in situ instruments that continuously measure lake conditions. Stable isotopes of nitrogen, carbon and sulphur provide insight into diet, habitat use, and carbon sources of aquatic organisms, while acoustic telemetry offers novel insight into fish movement within and between lakes. Mobile (e.g., autonomous underwater vehicles) and stationary (e.g., buoys) infrastructure equipped with instruments will be used at research locations to provide continuous, spatial, comprehensive, and real-time data (e.g., dissolved oxygen). This multi-faceted approach will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the environmental drivers of fish movement in large lakes and its influence on diet and trophic relationships. Refining our understanding of Great Lakes food webs will facilitate the development of management and conservation practices that are proactive and adaptive in the face of a rapidly changing environment.