<em>Abstract.—</em> The quality and quantity of habitats determine ecosystem productivity. Hence, they determine the potential fish productivity that sustains the fish harvests extractable from freshwaters and seas. Efforts to conserve and protect fish habitats are frustrated by key unanswered questions: which habitat types and how much must be protected to ensure natural self-sustaining fish stocks? Minns and Bakelaar presented a prototype method for assessing suitable habitat supply for fish stocks in Lake Erie, an analysis that can be used to address conservation issues. Here, the method is refined and extended, taking the assessment of habitat supply for pike <em>Esox lucius </em> in the Long Point region of Lake Erie as a case study. As with the previous study, much emphasis is placed on “learning by doing.” Because available inventories of habitat features are coarse and incomplete, improved guidelines for estimating habitat supply are expected from these prototype studies. The habitat supply method previously presented by Minns and Bakelaar is elaborated in three ways here: (1) the basic physical habitat assessment is derived from a remote-sensing inventory database; (2) methods of quantifying the thermal regime and integrating it with other habitat elements are examined; (3) habitat supply estimates are used in a pike population model, and pike biomass and production are simulated for the Long Point region of Lake Erie and then compared with available records. The roles of error and uncertainty are examined for all elements in the estimation and application of suitable habitat supply values. There is potential for supply measurement and analysis to guide fish habitat management.
Modelling functional fish habitat connectivity in rivers: A case study for prioritizing restoration actions targeting brown trout
