Identifying habitats essential for pike Esox lucius L. in the long point region of Lake Erie: A suitable supply approach

The quality and quantity of habitats determine ecosystem productivity. Henc e, they determine the potential fish productivity that sustains the fish ha rvests extractable from freshwaters and seas. Efforts to conserve and prote ct fish habitats are frustrated by key unanswered questions: which habitat types and how much must be protected to ensure natural self-sustaining fish stocks? Minns and Bakelaar presented a prototype method for assessing suit able habitat supply for fish stocks in Lake Erie, an analysis that can be u sed to address conservation issues. Here, the method is refined and extende d, taking the assessment of habitat supply for pike Esox lucius in the Long Point region of Lake Erie as a case study. As with the previous study, muc h emphasis is placed on "learning by doing." Because available inventories of habitat features are coarse and incomplete, improved guidelines for esti mating habitat supply are expected from these prototype studies. The habita t supply method previously presented by Minns and Bakelaar is elaborated in three ways here: (1) the basic physical habitat assessment is derived from a remote-sensing inventory database; (2) methods of quantifying the therma l regime and integrating it with other habitat elements are examined; (3) h abitat supply estimates are used in a pike population model, and pike bioma ss and production are simulated for the Long Point region of Lake Erie and then compared with available records. The roles of error and uncertainty ar e examined for all elements in the estimation and application of suitable h abitat supply values. There is potential for supply measurement and analysi s to guide fish habitat management.