Impacts of adfluvial fish on the ecology of two Great Lakes tributaries

Abstract

Anadromous and adfluvial fish can transport high concentrations of nutrients and energy into streams during spawning runs. While the ecological effects of their spawning migrations are variable, in some instances these fish contribute to increased nutrient concentrations, primary productivity, invertebrate biomass, and resident fish growth and survival in the nutrient-poor streams of the Pacific Northwest. In tributaries of the Great Lakes, the effects of introduced salmonid and native adfluvial fish are poorly documented. We conducted field experiments to determine the effects of a semelparous fall fish, Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, and an iteroparous spring fish, steelhead O. mykiss, on the ecology and productivity of two tributaries to the Muskegon River, Michigan, a Lake Michigan tributary. We sampled stream biota and water chemistry before and after the introduction of Chinook salmon carcasses and eggs in the fall and steelhead eggs in the spring in a tributary stream with natural spawning runs and in another tributary stream without runs but with carcass and egg additions. There was no response in terms of invertebrate density or water chemistry to spawning migrations or salmon carcass introductions in either tributary. The density of resident brown trout Salmo trutta increased in both stream types after the introduction of salmon carcasses in the fall, and energy consumption increased after the addition of salmon eggs in the fall and spring in the manipulated stream. Based on stomach content analysis, fish that had eggs in their stomachs also consumed more energy than fish that did not consume eggs. The results suggest that adfluvial fish may affect some tributaries of the Great Lakes by providing high-energy food sources to resident stream fish, but the potential effect of this egg consumption on resident fish growth and survival requires more research. © American Fisheries Society 2011.