GLIN==> Invasive Fish Competes with Lake Erie's Smallmouth Bass for Food

Invasive Fish Competes with Lake Erie's Smallmouth Bass for Food

 

February 2, 2011

 

For Immediate Release

 

SANDUSKY, OH-A small invasive fish is competing directly against an
important native fish species for food in Lake Erie, according to new Ohio
Sea Grant research. Invasive round gobies feed at roughly the same time of
day as native smallmouth bass, allowing gobies to greatly impact bass, the
lake's third most popular sport fish.

 

Dr. Chris Winslow, of Kutztown University and research students at Ohio
State University's Stone Laboratory, used results from SCUBA diving,
videotaping, and trawling to determine that round gobies feed from early
morning through early evening, which directly overlaps with smallmouth bass
activity. This causes the goby to have a large impact on juvenile smallmouth
bass feeding behavior.

 

"With the smallmouth bass fishery bringing in $40 million each year, we
needed to know more about these species and how they interact with each
other in order to manage them successfully," Winslow states.

 

This project builds on Winslow's previous Sea Grant research, which showed
that gobies push young smallmouth bass off the lake floor, forcing the
native fish to eat smaller organisms. He found that this change in diet
caused smallmouth bass to grow 1.5 to 2.5 more slowly than if gobies were
not present.

 

Gobies eat smallmouth bass eggs and out-compete young smallmouth bass for
food. The tables turn for smallmouth bass once they reach approximately two
inches in length. At this size, smallmouth bass begin to eat gobies and
smallmouth bass that eat gobies grow twice as fast as those that aren't
eating gobies.

 

"The positive and negative interactions between round gobies and smallmouth
bass are complex," Winslow says. "If smallmouth bass grow to fish-eating
size, then great, Lake Erie becomes home to large smallmouth bass. But if
competition with round gobies slows juvenile smallmouth growth, then the
smallmouth bass population may decline."

 

Ohio State University's Ohio Sea Grant program is part of NOAA Sea Grant, a
network of 32 Sea Grant programs dedicated to the protection and sustainable
use of marine and Great Lakes resources. For information on Ohio Sea Grant
and Stone Lab, visit ohioseagrant.osu.edu.

 

To learn more about this Ohio Sea Grant-funded research, visit
<http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/_documents/twineline/v32i3.pdf>
ohioseagrant.osu.edu/_documents/twineline/v32i3.pdf.

 

###

 

 

Contact:

 

Chris Winslow, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Assistant Professor,
Biology Department: 

484-646-5861, winslow at kutztown.edu.

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