Using Variance Structure to Quantify Responses to Perturbation in Fish Catches

We present a case-study evaluation of gillnet catches of Walleye Sander vitreus to assess potential effects of large-scale changes in Oneida Lake, New York, including disruption of trophic interactions by double-crested cormorants Phalacrocorax auritus and invasive dreissenid mussels. We used the empirical long-term gillnet time series and a negative binomial linear mixed model to partition variability into spatial and coherent temporal variance components, and we propose that variance partitioning can help quantify spatiotemporal variability and examine if variance structure differs before and after large-scale perturbation. Here, we found that average catch and total variability of catches decreased following...

Categories: Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: Fish, Northeast CASC, Sander vitreus, Wildlife and Plants, gillnets, walleye, All tags... trophic interactions, Fewer tags