The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes spanning the Canada–United States border. The five lakes are Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario. The Great Lakes Waterway enables modern travel and shipping by water among the lakes. The lakes connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River.
The lake trout is a freshwater char living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush,lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, and grey trout. In Lake Superior, it can also be variously known as siscowet, paperbelly and lean. The lake trout is prized both as a game fish and as a food fish. Those caught with dark coloration may be called mud hens.
Lake Nipissing is a lake in the Canadian province of Ontario. It has a surface area of 873.3 km2 (337.2 sq mi), a mean elevation of 196 m (643 ft) above sea level, and is located between the Ottawa River and Georgian Bay. Lake Nipissing is the third-largest lake entirely in Ontario. It is relatively shallow for a large lake, with an average depth of only 4.5 m (15 ft). The shallowness of the lake makes for many sandbars along the lake's irregular shoreline. The lake reaches a maximum depth of 64 m (210 ft) near the mouth of the French River, off the shore of Blueberry Island. The lake has many islands most of which are protected under the Protection of Significant Wetlands scheme, controlled by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.
Fathom Five National Marine Park is a National Marine Conservation Area in the Georgian Bay part of Lake Huron, Ontario, Canada, that seeks to protect and display shipwrecks and lighthouses, and conserve freshwater ecosystems. Parks Canada has management plans for the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, with a multi-action plan for species that are at risk, including endemic species, the Monarch butterfly, the eastern ribbonsnake, and the eastern whip-poor-will. The aquatic ecosystems in the park are also of particular interest. Many fish, shellfish, amphibians, and eels are an attraction for naturalists in the park. Much of this wildlife is accessible to scuba divers and snorkellers in the park. The many shipwrecks make the park a popular scuba diving destination, and glass bottom boat tours leave Tobermory regularly, allowing tourists to see the shipwrecks without having to get wet. Additionally, there are three main popular hiking trails found within Fathom Five National Marine Park that provides visitors with views of old growth forests and the Georgian Bay. The Saugeen Ojibway Peoples have inhabited the Bruce Peninsula and the area that is now Fathom Five National Marine Park for thousands of years. This land provided for their communities and their people with the plethora of wildlife and plant life. They provide the local knowledge about Lake Huron and its ecological value to the reserve, park, and their overall livelihood. Parks Canada and Saugeen Ojibway People's collaboration is said to yield a benefit to both parties with regard to overall ecosystem knowledge.
The sea lamprey is a parasitic lamprey native to the Northern Hemisphere. It is sometimes referred to as the "vampire fish". In its original habitats, the sea lamprey coevolved with its hosts, and those hosts evolved a measure of resistance to the sea lampreys.
The Lamprey River is a 50.2-mile-long (80.8 km) river in southeastern New Hampshire, the United States. It rises in Meadow Lake in Northwood, and flows south, then generally east through Raymond, Epping, Lee, Durham and finally Newmarket. Here, it meets Great Bay, a tidal inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, to which it is connected by a tidal estuary, the Piscataqua River. The river from the Bunker Pond Dam in Epping to the confluence with the Piscassic River is part of the designated National Wild and Scenic River System.
A lampricide is any chemical designed to target the larvae of lampreys in river systems before they develop into parasitic adults. One lampricide is used in the headwaters of Lake Champlain and the Great Lakes to control the sea lamprey, an invasive species to these lakes.
Great Lakes Areas of Concern are designated geographic areas within the Great Lakes Basin that show severe environmental degradation. There are a total of 43 areas of concern within the Great Lakes, 26 being in the United States, 12 in Canada, and five shared by the two countries.
Euryhaline organisms are able to adapt to a wide range of salinities. An example of a euryhaline fish is the short-finned molly, Poecilia sphenops, which can live in fresh water, brackish water, or salt water.
The Pacific lamprey is an anadromous parasitic lamprey from the Pacific Coast of North America and Asia in an area called the Pacific Rim. It is a member of the Petromyzontidae family. The Pacific lamprey is also known as the three-tooth lamprey and tridentate lamprey.
The shortjaw cisco is a North-American freshwater whitefish in the salmon family. Adult fish range to about 30 cm (12 in) in length and are silver, tinged with green above and paler below. One of the members of the broader Coregonus artedi complex of ciscoes, it is distributed widely in the deeper lakes of Canada, but populations in the Great Lakes have been declining and it is no longer present in Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie. It feeds mainly on crustaceans and insect larvae and spawns in the autumn on the lake bed. It is part of the important cisco (chub) fishery in the Great Lakes. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as "vulnerable". Shortjaw cisco have however evolved from the cisco Coregonus artedi independently in different lakes and different parts of the range, and conservation assessments therefore should be made on a lake-wise rather than range-wide basis.
The freshwater whitefish are fishes of the subfamily Coregoninae, which contains whitefishes and ciscoes, and is one of three subfamilies in the salmon family Salmonidae. Apart from the subfamily Coregoninae, the family Salmonidae includes the salmon, trout, and char species of the subfamily Salmoninae, and grayling species of the subfamily Thymallinae. Freshwater whitefish are distributed mainly in relatively cool waters throughout the northern parts of the Northern Hemisphere.
The silver lamprey is a lamprey commonly found in the Northern and Central United States, as well as a large part of southern Canada. Its binomial name means "sucking fish" in Greek and "one-pointed" in Latin. The silver lamprey is a member of the class Agnatha, sometimes referred to as cyclostomes (round-mouths). Other common names include: bloodsucker, blue lamprey, hitch-hiker, lamper, lamprey eel, northern lamprety. The silver lamprey should not be confused with the sea lamprey, which has caused considerable damage to native fish populations in the Great Lakes region.
The northern brook lamprey is a freshwater fish in the family Petromyzontidae. It is closely related to the silver lamprey and may represent an ecotype of a single species with I. unicuspis.
A harmful algal bloom (HAB), or excessive algae growth, is an algal bloom that causes negative impacts to other organisms by production of natural algae-produced toxins, mechanical damage to other organisms, or by other means. HABs are sometimes defined as only those algal blooms that produce toxins, and sometimes as any algal bloom that can result in severely lower oxygen levels in natural waters, killing organisms in marine or fresh waters. Blooms can last from a few days to many months. After the bloom dies, the microbes that decompose the dead algae use up more of the oxygen, generating a "dead zone" which can cause fish die-offs. When these zones cover a large area for an extended period of time, neither fish nor plants are able to survive. Harmful algal blooms in marine environments are often called "red tides".
Lampreys are a group of jawless fish comprising the order Petromyzontiformes. The adult lamprey is characterized by a toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth. The common name "lamprey" is probably derived from Latin lampetra, which may mean "stone licker", though the etymology is uncertain. Lamprey is sometimes seen for the plural form.
The Great Lakes Fishery Commission is a bi-national commission made up of representatives of the United States and Canada. It was formed by the Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries, concluded in 1954 and ratified in 1955. It has eight members: four members are appointed by the President of the United States, serving six-year terms, and four are appointed by the Privy Council of Canada. The commission is charged, under Article Four of the Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries, with conducting research and making recommendations on the management of Great Lakes fisheries, as well attempting the eradication of the sea lamprey from the Great Lakes.
Invasive species are a crucial threat to many native habitats and species of the United States and a significant cost to agriculture, forestry, and recreation. An invasive species refers to an organism that is not native to a specific region, this poses significant economic and environmental threats to its new habitat. The term "invasive species" can also refer to feral species or introduced diseases. Some introduced species, such as the dandelion, do not cause significant economic or ecologic damage and are not widely considered as invasive. Economic damages associated with invasive species' effects and control costs are estimated at $120 billion per year.
Canadian aquatic invasive species are all forms of life that traditionally has not been native to Canada's waterways. In Eastern Canada, non-native plant and animal species are a concern to biologists. Bringing non-native species such as invasive fishes into Canada can damage the environment and ecosystem by repressing native species due to food competition or preying. Invasive fishes enter the fresh waters of Canada in several ways including drifting, deliberate introduction, accidental release, experimental purposes and, most commonly, through the attachment on international boat hulls. Invasive species are the second biggest threat to fish and other marine life in Canada behind loss of habitat and degradation. The threat to native species is primarily caused by impacts on the food web; however, invasive species also bring dangerous pathogens and physically interfere with existing aquatic life. Invasive species include sea lampreys, zebra mussels, smallmouth bass, European green crab, vase tunicate, and sea squirts.
The wildlife of Greece includes the diverse flora, fauna, and funga of Greece, a country in southern Europe. The country is mostly mountainous with a very long, convoluted coastline, consisting of peninsulas and many islands. The climate ranges from Mediterranean through temperate to alpine, and the habitats include mountains, hills, forests, rivers, lakes, coasts and cultivated land.
