Relationship between Alewife Abundance and Yellow Perch Recruitment in Southern Lake Michigan

Abstract

Abstract We examined the relationship between the abundance of alewives Alosa pseudoharengus and the recruitment of yellow perch Perca flavescens to determine if alewives were potentially responsible for yellow perch recruitment failures in southern Lake Michigan after 1988. We used annual Jun–Aug bottom trawl data from two 5-m-depth index sites near Michigan City, Indiana, during 1984–1998 to index alewife abundance as the catch per unit effort (CPUE) of age-1 and older fish and yellow perch recruitment as the CPUE of age-2 fish. The relationship between alewife abundance and yellow perch recruitment was modeled as logeRt +2 = 11.7 − (2.12) logeAt, where logeRt +2 is the natural log of the CPUE of age-2 yellow perch in year t + 2 and logeAt is the natural log of the CPUE of alewives age 1 and older in year t. The model explained greater than 70% of the variability in recruitment of the 1984–1996 yellow perch year-classes. We conclude that yellow perch year-class failures in Indiana waters of Lake Michiga...