Cooperative Agreement for affiliated Partner with the Great Lakes Northern Forests Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU)

The primary responsibility of the US Geological Survey (USGS) is to assist natural resource, land, and mineral managers by providing them with sound biological information and assistance in applying the information to their needs. The USGS Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC) has specific authorities under the Great Lakes Fisheries Research Authorization Act (H.R. 1865, Title II) to conduct fisheries research to "...execute a comprehensive, multi-lake, freshwater fisheries science program..." to support management decision making by parties to the Great Lakes Council of Lake Committees (CLC). Under this authority, GLSC works across the Great Lakes basin to carry out annual lake-wide surveys of prey fish abundances; answer discrete research questions about fish, limnology, and ecosystems; map habitats; and develop technological solutions to persistent or imperfect sampling problems. GLSC’s science products support the information needs of the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission, parties to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, the International Joint Commission, and other regional and national partners. The work of GLSC is critical to maintaining the economic prosperity of Americans that rely on fisheries for revenue generation. Multiple Great Lakes fish stocks are in decline due to a combination of factors ranging from invasive species to habitat degradation. Lake whitefish is one such species. One impediment to healthy stocks of lake whitefish and similar species is degradation of habitats where they deposit their eggs and hatch their young. USGS is engaged in research to understand and hopefully alleviate impediments to fisheries productivity to help maintain American prosperity, which in the Great Lakes is supported by $7B in annual revenues from fisheries related industries. This funding opportunity is for a cooperator to assist with our understanding of how lake-bed habitats contribute to fisheries success. Specifically, a need exists to develop high-resolution maps of habitats that can be used to support ongoing studies of the role of habitat in fish production. The successful cooperator will use underwater images collected by USGS’s autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to map habitats at the very high resolutions using photogrammetric techniques like Structure from Motion. USGS lacks expertise in underwater photogrammetry needed to convert their raw data into maps that can help understand fish hatching and rearing success. To fulfill their mandate to support Great Lakes fisheries managers, GLSC must bring their knowledge and datasets together with a cooperator with knowledge of the technologies and photogrammetry to pursue joint research objectives.