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Influences of Seasonality and Habitat Quality on Great Lakes Coastal Wetland Fish Community Composition and Diets
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2022
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Abstract
Great Lakes coastal wetlands (GLCW)
have been severely degraded by anthropogenic activity
over the last several decades despite their critical
role in fish production. Many Great Lakes fish species
use coastal wetland habitats for spawning, feeding,
shelter, and nurseries throughout the year. The goal
of our study was to compare GLCW fish community
composition in the spring, summer, and fall months
and investigate how water quality relates to fish diversity,
the presence of functional groups, and juvenile fish diets. We summarized fish data collected from
GLCW across the basin and used the coastal wetland
monitoring program’s water quality-land use indicator
to quantify water quality. Basin-wide, we found
taxonomic and functional group differences in community
composition among three sampling seasons,
as well as across the range of water quality. Water
quality was positively associated with the abundance
of small cyprinids and the relative abundance of
some habitat and reproductive specialists. Seasonal
differences were also observed for many of these
functional groups, with more temperature- and pollution-
sensitive fishes captured in the spring and more nest-spawning fishes captured in the summer and fall.
In our diet study, we found that age-0 fish primarily
consumed zooplankton in the fall, whereas age-1 fish
primarily consumed macroinvertebrates in the spring.
Moreover, wetland quality was positively associated
with trichopteran prey abundance. We concluded that
taxonomic and functional composition of fish communities
in GLCW vary markedly with respect to
water quality and season. Thus, a full understanding
of communities across a gradient of quality requires
multi-season sampling.