Species: Salvelinus namaycush

Lake Trout

Species

Fishes

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Invasive species: fishes

Encyclopedia of Puget Sound

Classification

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Craniata

Class

Actinopterygii

Order

Salmoniformes

Family

Salmonidae

Genus

Salvelinus

NatureServe

Source:
ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.103158

Classification

Other Global Common Names

touladi

Informal Taxonomy

Animals, Vertebrates - Fishes - Bony Fishes - Salmon and Trouts

Formal Taxonomy

Animalia - Craniata - Actinopterygii - Salmoniformes - Salmonidae - Salvelinus - by some authors in the 1960s.

Ecology and Life History

Habitat Type Description

Freshwater

Migration

true - true - true - May move hundreds of miles betwen spawning and nonspawning habitats. In northwestern Lake Michigan, recaptures of tagged lake trout indicate that they occupied an area with a radius of approximately 68 km; there was relatively little movement across the lake (moved mostly along the shoreline) (Schmalz et al. 2002).

Non-migrant

true

Locally Migrant

true

Food Comments

Feeds opportunistically on various invertebrate and vertebrate animals. Zooplankton (Mysis and Pontoporeia crustaceans) important in diet of young; later, small benthic invertebrates are added to diet. Fishes, when available, are important in diet of adults (Scott and Crossman 1973), which may subsist on zooplankton when surface waters are too warm and fishes are absent in the deeper colder waters. In Lake Superior, lean lake trout feed primarily on lake herring, rainbow smelt, and slimy sculpin; siscowet lake trout feed mostly on deepwater coregonines and deepwater sculpin (Harvey et al. 2003).

Reproduction Comments

Spawns generally in fall, earlier in the north than in the south. In Lake Superior, siscowet form has been found in spawning condition in spring and summer as well as in fall; humper form spawns in late summer and early fall (Burnham-Curtis and Smith 1994). Eggs hatch in winter or spring, usually after 4-5 months. Sexually mature sometimes as early as age IV, sometimes as late as age XVII. Post-spawning mortality generally is low (Stearley 1992).

Ecology Comments

Slow growing, long lived. Especially vulnerable to sea lamprey parasitism. Lake trout can displace bull trout and may prevent bull trout from becoming established in certain low elevation lakes (Donald and Alger 1993). Evidence from central U.S. waters of Lake Superior implies that siscowet predation on nearshore prey has not had a direct negative effect on lean lake trout stocks (Harvey et al. 2003).

Length

Conservation Status

NatureServe Global Status Rank

Global Status Last Reviewed

2003-04-15

Global Status Last Changed

1996-09-12

Distribution

Conservation Status Map

Global Range

Native throughout most of Canada and much of Alaska, south to Great Lakes region, northern New England, northern border of western U.S. Introduced in many areas of northern and western U.S. and elsewhere in the world. Common in north, uncommon in Great Lakes except where maintained by artificial propagation (Page and Burr 1991).

ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.103158