Two hundred years of historical spawning and nursery data for coregonine fishes in the Laurentian Great Lakes
This dataset, CORHIST, compiles historical spawning and nursery records for coregonine fishes in the Laurentian Great Lakes. It supports conservation and restoration planning by providing geospatial data to model habitat suitability, assess species distribution, and inform fisheries management across the region.
Subject Tags
- Lakes
- Fisheries
- Habitat restoration
Abstract
Historical data can provide critical ecological information for species across the globe, many of which are facing unprecedented rates of ecosystem change. Yet, historical information related to freshwater species, especially fishes, remains scattered, often in original formats, and underutilized for informing conservation and restoration activities. Here, we present a Data Descriptor called Coregonine Spawning History (CORHIST), a database designed to house diverse data related to past spawning and nursery areas for fishes in the family Salmonidae, subfamily Coregoninae (ciscoes and whitefishes), in the Laurentian Great Lakes and their tributaries. Data for 11 species of coregonines historically occurring in the Great Lakes are included in CORHIST. Over 3,400 occurrence records at the coordinate scale have been entered, over 2,200 of which are for Cisco (Coregonus artedi) and Lake Whitefish (C. clupeaformis)—two focal species for which there is either multinational conservation interest or restoration efforts underway in the Laurentian Great Lakes. CORHIST is already proving useful for several studies developing habitat suitability models and delineating spatial units for conservation or restoration planning.
Citation
Brant, C. O., Silvis, S., Bennion, D. H., Castiglione, C., Tyrrell, K., Hannahs, K., ... & Herbert, M. (2026). Two hundred years of historical spawning and nursery data for coregonine fishes in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Scientific Data, 13(1), 711.
TNC Authors
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Matthew Herbert
Senior Conservation Scientist, Michigan
The Nature Conservancy
Email: mherbert@tnc.org