Biology and management of coregonid fishes - 2008

The papers presented in this issue, stemming from the 10th Symposium on the Biology and Management of Coregonid Fishes, owe a great deal to the vision and foresight of Dr. Casimir Lindsey who was the instigator of the first meeting of this type in Winnipeg, 1969 (Lindsey & Woods 1970). The contents of the proceedings of this 10th meeting present data on whitefishes, as far south as Utah and Georgia and as far north as 70 degrees latitude. They cover a broad longitudinal range of countries including the United States, Russia, Austria, Finland, Norway, Canada, Germany, France, Switzerland and Poland. Like the first proceedings and the many that have followed, the topics range from basic ecology to behaviour, and from taxonomy to genetics. Six major categories are covered: Several papers deal with habitat adaptation and distribution in time and space (Siberia; Lakes Michigan, Superior and Lake Mondsee, Austria). Another suite of papers is concerned with life history variation and migration in rivers and lakes (Yukon River, in Finland rivers, Lake Constance (Germany), Mackenzie River and its basin). The understanding of evolutionary genetics and systematics and the high ecological relevance of whitefishes is greatly enhanced by several papers (on Lake Baikal whitefish, Coregonus peled, Lake Mondsee Coregonids, fishes of the White Sea Kuloi Plateau, European whitefish, Lake Whitefish from Lake Huron, Lake Baikal fishes, east Siberian Coregonids, and on Great Slave Lake ciscoes). Several papers related to fisheries and stock assessment advance our knowledge on hatchery effects on wild recruitment, on changes in the Lake Superior fish community, on assessment of vendace in South Georgia, followed by a summary paper on 123 years of study of a small scale fishery, and on the effect of removals on larval abundance. Five papers enlarge our understanding of the impacts of multiple stressors such as climate change, industrial development and invasive species on Coregonids (on lake whitefish in Lake Michigan, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, on climate change effects in Minnesota lakes, on the effects of ecosystem change in the Great Lakes, and on recovering whitefish stocks in the Detroit River). Finally, four important papers on issues in conservation and species at risk on Powan in Scotland, on endangered whitefish in Finland, on Coregonid fishes in Bear Lake, Utah and on the conservation of vendace in the United Kingdom round up this volume. Of note are the number of papers from the great lakes of the world which are presented. This most recent collection of work is as informative and as influential as the proceedings that have come before it and will inspire countless other researchers in their sutdy of the Coregonid familiy of fishes.