Investigating Drivers of Cisco Recruitment in Lake Superior

The goal of this project is to investigate which processes affect the survival of larval Cisco (Coregonus artedi) to mature adults (recruitment). Olivia’s research will focus on identifying biotic (abundance of competitive or predator species etc.) and abiotic (winter duration, water temperature, nutrient loading etc.) factors linked to Cisco recruitment.

We will use three different mathematical methods to establish the strength of evidence of each hypothesized driver of Cisco recruitment. Our three quantitative methods include

1. Multivariate Auto-Regressive State Space Models

2. Empirical Dynamic Models

3. Bayesian Spatial Delta-glmm Models