In 2014, the USGS LEBS successfully completed large vessel surveys in all three of Lake Erie’s basins. Lake Erie Biological Station’s primary vessel surveys included the Western Basin Forage Fish Assessment and East Harbor Forage Fish Assessment as well as contributing to the cooperative multi-agency Central Basin Hydroacoustics Assessment, the Eastern Basin Coldwater Community Assessment, and LTLA (see FTG, CWTG, and FTG reports, respectively). Results from the surveys contribute to Lake Erie Committee Task Group data needs and analyses of trends in Lake Erie’s fish communities. The cruise survey schedule in 2014 was greatly increased by LEBS’s participation in the Lake Erie CSMI, which consisted of up-to two weeks of additional sampling per month from April to October. CSMI is a bi-national effort that occurs at Lake Erie every five years with the purpose of addressing data and knowledge gaps necessary to management agencies and the Lake Erie LaMP. LEBS deepwater science capabilities also provided a platform for data collection by Lake Erie investigators from multiple agencies and universities including: the USGS GLSC, ODW, KSU, OSU, UM, PU, UT, and the USNRL. Samples from this survey are being processed and a separate report of the findings will be made available in a separate document.

Our 2014 vessel operations were initiated in mid-April, as soon after ice-out as possible, and continued into early December. During this time, crews of the R/V Muskie and R/V Bowfin deployed 196 bottom trawls covering 48.5 km of lake-bottom, nearly 6 km of gillnet, collected data from 60 hydroacoustics transects, 285 lower trophic (i.e., zooplankton and benthos) samples, and 330 water quality measures (e.g., temperature profiles, water samples). Thus, 2014 was an intensive year of field activity.

Our June and September bottom trawl surveys in the Western Basin were numerically dominated by Emerald Shiner, White Perch, and Yellow Perch; however, Freshwater Drum were dominant by biomass. Age-2+ Yellow Perch and White Perch diets from our western basin trawl had highest occurrences of benthic invertebrates in spring and fall. Hexagenia spp. accounted for >25% of Yellow Perch and White Perch diet composition (dry weight) in spring. We conducted an analysis using data from the past 6 years of our East Harbor survey to determine to what degree our new research vessel and trawl is affecting our ability to detect trends across the 50+ year time series. We also evaluated trends in water temperatue, dissolved oxygen, secchi depth and total Phosphorus from our LTLA sites near Vermilion, Ohio. Within the following report sections, we describe specific results from our primary surveys conducted in 2014.