Research Document 2021/031
Methods and data sources to support American eel population analysis
By Cairns, D.K., Avery, T.S., Benchetrit, J., Bornarel, V., Casselman, J.M., Castonguay, M., Crow, S.K., Dorow, M., Drouineau, H., Frankowski, J., Galbraith, H.S., Haro, A., Hoyle, S.D., Knickle, D.C., Koops, M.A., Poirier, L.A., Rudd, M.B., Thorson, J.T., Williams, E.K., Young, J., and Zhu, X
Abstract
The American eel (Anguilla rostrata) occupies a vast range in the West Atlantic Ocean and inflowing waters. Despite its presumed panmictic status, management of this species is geographically fragmented. There have been widespread calls for internationally coordinated efforts towards a range-wide stock assessment, but such an objective faces obstacles of a high degree of heterogeneity in major life history characteristics and the near-absence of such data in the northern, western, and southern parts of the species' range. This paper reviews novel and underutilized methods and data sources that may aid progress to an eventual range-wide assessment. Methods for obtaining information on distribution and abundance include mining of extant data and field surveys by glass bottom boat, electrofishing boat, net enclosures, environmental DNA (eDNA) and ocean larval tows. Analytic resources and tools include environmental databases, fetch as a covariate of abundance, accounting for the net effects of small ponds, GIS-oriented habitat modeling, glass eel-oriented population modeling, estimation of age structure from length structure, use of life history parameter clines to fill gaps in assessment input values, and life cycle modeling. eDNA is a cost-effective technique that has the potential to clarify American eel distribution, and possibly relative abundance, over the very large areas where data for this species are sparse. Most other techniques reviewed in this paper have substantial costs, which may constrain their use in the southern part of the American eel range where resources of aquatic science are often limited.
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