Comparative bioenergetics modeling of lake trout

March 5, 2014 @ 12:45 pm to 01:10 pm

Megan Kepler, Penn State

104 Forest Resources Building

Lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) recovery and management efforts in the Great Lakes include stocking a diverse composition of lake trout including multiple morphotypes (i.e.,body forms), which differ in a variety of characteristics (e.g., habitat preferences and lipid storage). Management tools that relate fish physiology to habitat attributes (e.g., consumption rates at various temperatures) such as bioenergetics models are available for lake trout, but current lake trout bioenergetics models were developed using one morphotype and fail to incorporate a wide range of potential environmental temperatures. To achieve the goal of developing bioenergetics models for lake trout morphotypes, consumption and respiration experiments were completed across a range of fish sizes (5-100g) and temperatures (4-22 C) on two lake trout morphotypes. In general, comparison of morphotypes resulted in subtle differences that were temperature and weight dependent indicating that both available habitat and lake trout composition are important considerations for management strategies.