Abstract
Walleye (Sander vitreus) is an important game fish throughout much of North America. We evaluated the performance of the Wisconsin bioenergetics model for walleye in the laboratory. Walleyes were fed rainbow smelt (Osmerus mordax) in four laboratory tanks during a 126-day experiment. Based on a statistical comparison of bioenergetics model predictions of monthly consumption with the observed monthly consumption, we concluded that the bioenergetics model significantly underestimated food consumption by walleye in the laboratory. The degree of underestimation appeared to depend on the feeding rate. For the tank with the lowest feeding rate (1.4% of walleye body weight per day), the agreement between the bioenergetics model prediction of cumulative consumption over the entire 126-day experiment and the observed cumulative consumption was remarkably close, as the prediction was within 0.1% of the observed cumulative consumption. Feeding rates in the other three tanks ranged from 1.6% to 1.7% of walleye body weight per day, and bioenergetics model predictions of cumulative consumption over the 126-day experiment ranged between 11 and 15% less than the observed cumulative consumption.
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Acknowledgements
We thank J. Breck and the Institute for Fisheries Research for supplying the walleye fingerlings. We are grateful to Omstead Foods Limited (Ontario, Canada) for providing the rainbow smelt used in the laboratory experiment. We also thank L. Begnoche, M. Chriscinske, G. Cummins, and K. Tecco for assisting with the experiment, T. Miller and S. Constant for measuring water velocities, and J. Breck, P. Kocovsky, J. Savino, and M. Stapanian for their helpful reviews of the manuscript. This article is Contribution 1505 of the USGS Great Lakes Science Center.
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Madenjian, C.P., Wang, C., O’Brien, T.P. et al. Laboratory evaluation of a walleye (Sander vitreus) bioenergetics model. Fish Physiol Biochem 36, 45–53 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10695-008-9278-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10695-008-9278-2