Nutrient management and structural shifts in fish assemblages: Lessons learned from an Area of Concern in Lake Ontario
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract While total phosphorus ( TP ) is a critical determinant of freshwater ecosystem productivity, multiple stressors can induce shifts in energy pathways, with profound implications for ecosystem and fishery restoration. The Bay of Quinte (Lake Ontario, Canada) is a Great Lakes nearshore ecosystem that has been historically subjected to a variety of environmental perturbations: cultural eutrophication, low dissolved oxygen, reduced fisheries, climatic extremes, phosphorus (P) abatement, and aquatic invasive species. We used the Bay of Quinte to study how trophic state alterations affect fish assemblages in Great Lakes nearshore environments by examining the response of fish biomass to TP concentration variability in the presence of multiple stressors. Our analysis is based on a 42‐year (1972–2013) dataset from the Bay of Quinte for water quality through the food web to fishes. We employed a series of statistical tools that can offer insights into the structural changes induced by the events examined. We first used dynamic linear modelling to detect temporal trends in fish biomass, while accounting for year‐to‐year TP variability over three spatial segments of the bay. We then developed piecewise regression models to assess the extent to which specific ecological events induced distinct shifts in the fish assemblage. Multiple regression modelling was used to quantify the relative importance of TP , zooplankton, and surface water temperature on fish biomass. Based on gillnets, there were consistent fish biomass changes across the bay with increased biomass before P control (1972–1977), declines after P control followed by the establishment of a steady state or modest increase (1978–1994), and a declining trajectory during the recent period (1995–2013). Even when accounting for the role of water temperature and zooplankton, TP still had a significant effect on fish biomass. However, the strength and nature of the relationship varied among fish groups, and overall, the effect of TP on fish biomass has weakened in recent years. Our models show that fish biomass in the Bay of Quinte is shaped by the year‐to‐year TP variability. However, the relationship between P and fish abundance has been modulated by various ecological events with the consequence that the Bay of Quinte fish assemblage has changed and the food web now produces less fish biomass per unit of TP . A projected reduction of mean ambient TP levels from 30 to 25 μg/L, is expected to induce a 24% decline in total fish biomass, and further shift the fish assemblage with the biomass of planktivores and walleye declining by >60% and 30%, respectively. Recreational fishing provides important economic benefits in the Bay of Quinte, through tourism and other local business operations. Recognising the economic importance of fishing, our analysis provides critical insights regarding the on‐going management efforts to reduce external nutrient loadings (point and non‐point sources, urban storm water) and further lower ambient TP levels and primary productivity. The potential implications of already low nutrient concentrations for fish productivity represent a major challenge in effectively balancing water quality with fisheries management in the area.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.012 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".