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A reference inventory for aquatic fauna of the Laurentian Great Lakes
Citation:
Trebitz, A., M. Sykes, AND J. Barge. A reference inventory for aquatic fauna of the Laurentian Great Lakes. JOURNAL OF GREAT LAKES RESEARCH. International Association for Great Lakes Research, Ann Arbor, MI, 45(6):1036-1046, (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jglr.2019.10.004
Impact/Purpose:
This manuscripts describes an inventory of aquatic fauna known to occur in the North American Great Lakes why this is needed, how it was developed, what the inventory contains. It is intended to serve as a resource for the researchers and managers studying the Great Lakes, for example to assist with generating expected species lists and finding information for unfamiliar taxa. The inventory was compiled by EPA and contract staff with funding support from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, and supports a broader EPA effort to conduct comprehensive aquatic species monitoring in the Great Lakes.
Description:
The Laurentian Great Lakes encompass an expansive and diverse set of freshwater ecosystems that contain a concordantly large and diverse vertebrate and invertebrate fauna. Although numerous publications exist concerning the composition and distribution of this fauna, there is at present no single readily available resource that brings all this information together. Here, we present and describe the compilation process for a comprehensive Great Lakes aquatic fauna inventory covering fishes, reptiles, amphibians, zooplankton, mollusks, annelids, insects, mites, and various other aquatic invertebrates. Inventory entries were developed via an extensive search of literature and internet sources and are attributed with detailed nomenclature information, general lake and habitat occurrences, and supporting citations and links to life history and genetic marker information. The inventory scope is the Laurentian Great Lakes proper and their connecting channels and adjacent coastal wetlands and lower tributaries. Over 2200 unique taxa are contained in the inventory -- 85% resolved to species and 14% to genus -- which substantially expands previously available taxonomic richness for Great Lakes invertebrates. Examples of pattern analyses for fauna in this inventory show that aquatic vertebrates are generally more widely distributed than invertebrates, that biodiversity is concentrated in the coastal margins, and that taxonomic resolution and spatial distribution information is quite uneven across fauna groups. The inventory is being packaged into a public, searchable database that showcases the biodiversity of the Great Lakes aquatic fauna and can assist the research and management community in their biological investigations.
