2000 Consent Decree- an agreement between native American tribes and the state of Michigan that governs allocation, management, and regulation of state and tribal fisheries in the 1836 Treaty Waters of the Great Lakes.
Abundance: the relative representation of a species in a particular ecosystem and is usually measured as the number of individuals per sample.
Adipose fin- a soft, fleshy, rayless fin posterior to the dorsal fin.
Anatomy: the study of the structure of living things.
Anthropogenic: Derived from human activities.
Annuli: yearly rings.
Assemblage: all of the various species that exist in a particular habitat
Biomass: the dry weight of organic matter of a group of organisms in a particular habitat.
Bolus: small rounded mass of a substance, especially of chewed food at the moment of swallowing.
Boreal: characteristic of the climatic zone south of the Arctic .
Catch: the amount of fish landed.
Catch inequality: the phenomenon of a small number of anglers catching a disproportionately large number of fish.
Catch per unit effort- measure of density or population size calculated as total catch divided by the total amount of effort used to harvest the catch.
Catchment: an extent of land where water from precipitation drains into a body of water
Community: All the organisms that inhabit a particular area, living close enough for potential interaction.
Conspecifics: individuals of the same species
Creel survey: a sampling program that involves interviews and inspection of anglers’ catches.
Culture (fish): Artificially growing fish through various stages development.
Diatom: a single-celled alga that has a cell wall of silica
Distribution: the geographic range of an organism
Ecology: The relationship between organisms and their environment.
Ecosystem: A community and its physical environment.
Effluents: liquid waste discharged into a body of water
Effort: the amount of fishing taken place.
Endocrinology: the study of hormones.
Endogenous: resulting or originating from within an organism.
Engineer species: Any organism that creates or modifies habitats.
Environmental stochasticity: unpredictable spatiotemporal fluctuations in environmental conditions.
Fecundity- measure of the ability to reproduce.
Filter-feeders: Organisms which feed by straining suspended matter and food particles from water.
Fishery-independent: in the absence of any fishing activity
Fishing mortality- rate at which individuals are removed from a population by fishing.
Fitness: The contribution of an individual to the gene pool of the next generation, relative to the contribution of other individuals.
Fork Length: the distance between the tip of the snout and the most anterior point of the fork of the tail.
Fry: recently hatched young fish that have absorbed their yolk sacs.
Gamete: a mature sexual reproductive cell, typically a sperm or egg.
Gill rakers: Bony or cartilaginous, finger-like projections off the gill arch, located in the gill cavity, which function in filter-feeders in retaining food.
Harvest: the amount of fish taken for use, or not released.
Hybrid: An organism that is the offspring of breeding plants or animals of different species or varieties of animals or plants.
Impoundment: A body of water formed by confining a source of water.
Interbreed: Breed different species or varieties of animals or plants; producing hybrids.
Isozyme electrophoresis: A process in which enzymes that catalyze the same chemical reaction but differ in amino acid sequence are separated by moving down an electrical field.
Juvenile: Period in the fish life-cycle between the larval stage and the adult stage, when individuals usually first resemble adults.
Laurentian: anything referring to St. Lawrence.
Life history: The series of events from birth through reproduction and death.
Littoral: related to or situated on the shore of a lake.
Meta-analysis: combining the results of several studies to address related hypotheses.
Mitochondrial DNA sequencing: The process of determining the nucleotide sequences of DNA from mitochondria (a structure in cells that is the site of cellular respiration).
Morphological characteristics: Features of an organism’s form and structure.
Ontogenetic: origin and development of an individual organism from embryo to adult.
Opercular: a hard flap serving as a cover for the gill slits in fishes.
Percent tolerance: percent of organisms in sample that are highly tolerant to impairment
Physiology: the study of the chemical and physical functions within a living system.
Piscivorous: fish-eating.
Planktivorous: feeds on plankton.
Population: A localized group of individuals that belong to the same species.
Recruitment: (1) When juvenile organisms survive to be added to a population. (2) The process by which fish enter the exploitable stock and become susceptible to fishing.
Riparian: The area situated on the banks of a river.
Salmonid: a fish of the salmon family.
Sample size: the number of observations in a study.
Spawner: a fish capable of spawning.
Sterile: Unable to produce offspring.
Stock: a group of individuals of a species occupying a well-defined area independent of other groups of the same species and with a different gene pattern.
Stream bed aggradation: An increase in stream bed elevation due to the deposition of sediment.
Taxa: A taxonomic group of any rank, such as a species, family, or class.
Taxonomic identity: The classification of organisms according to their natural relationships.
Total length: length from the tip of the snout to the tip of the longer lobe of the caudal fin.
Transcription: The synthesis of RNA from a DNA template.
Trawl: a method of fishing involving boats pulling a net through the water
Trophic position: an organism’s location in a food chain.
Trophic status: The level of growth or productivity of a lake as measured by phosphorus content, algae abundance, and depth of light penetration.
Variance: the measure of how far each value in a data set is from the mean.
Year-class: individuals of a given species that were all spawned in the same year.
Yearling: an individual that is one year old or in the second year of its age.
Yield: the amount of fish landed, or catch, typically measured in weight.
