Approaching merchant ships elicit behavioral changes in Atlantic sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus) in the St. Lawrence River, Canada.

There are gaps in our understanding of sturgeon's response to anthropogenic sounds and the spatial scales at which they occur. We measured spatial displacement of Atlantic sturgeon in the St. Lawrence River at various distances of approaching merchant ships.

Landscape variability explains spatial pattern of population structure of northern pike (Esox lucius) in a large fluvial system.

A growing number of studies have been investigating the influence of contemporary environmental factors on population genetic structure, but few have addressed the issue of spatial patterns in the variable intensity of factors influencing the extent of population structure, and particularly so in aquatic ecosystems. In this study, we document the landscape genetics of northern pike (Esox lucius), based on the analysis of nearly 3000 individuals from 40 sampling sites using 22 microsatellites along the Lake Ontario - St. Lawrence River system (750 km) that locally presents diverse degrees of interannual water level variation.

Inferring processes from spatial patterns: the role of directional and non-directional forces in shaping fish larvae distribution in a freshwater lake system.

Larval dispersal is a crucial factor for fish recruitment. For fishes with relatively small-bodied larvae, drift has the potential to play a more important role than active habitat selection in determining larval dispersal; therefore, we expect small-bodied fish larvae to be poorly associated with habitat characteristics. To test this hypothesis, we used as model yellow perch (Perca flavescens), whose larvae are among the smallest among freshwater temperate fishes.

The landscape genetics of yellow perch (Perca flavescens) in a large fluvial ecosystem.

Landscape genetics is being increasingly applied to elucidate the role of environmental features on the population structure of terrestrial organisms. However, the potential of this framework has been little explored in aquatic ecosystems such as large rivers. Here, we used a landscape genetics approach in order to (i) document the population structure of the yellow perch (Perca flavescens) by means of genetic variation at microsatellite markers, (ii) assess to what extent the structure was explained by landscape heterogeneity, and (iii) interpret the relevance of interactions between genetics and landscape for management and conservation.