The Invasion of Sea Lamprey in the Great Lakes
Faculty Mentor(s)
Dr. Paul Pearson and Dr. Yew-Meng Koh
Document Type
Poster
Event Date
4-15-2016
Abstract
The sea lamprey is an invasive species that had been introduced to the Great Lakes. The sea lamprey feeds upon the native fish, by attaching itself to the fish with its hinge-less jaw having many rows of teeth, and feeding on the fish’s blood. This has had a dramatic effect on the numbers of fish in the Great Lakes, since the sea lamprey has no predators in the Great Lakes areas. This project looks into the numbers of sea lamprey in Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, and Lake Superior from the year 2009 to 2015. Using data from the Great Lakes Fishery Commission and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, statistical tests of two means, multiple proportions, and multiple means were performed using the Hope College’s applet resource. The tests concluded that the northern areas of Lake Michigan and Huron had greater amounts of sea lamprey than the southern areas, that Lake Huron and Lake Michigan had larger amounts of sea lamprey than Lake Superior, and that Lake Huron had a greater number of sea lamprey than Lake Michigan.
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Comments
This research was supported by the Day1 Program through a grant from the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation.