Tracking walleye spawning with molecular tools

Project overview

Monitoring walleye during the spawning season is essential for sustainable fisheries management in Manitoba, but current methods are labour-intensive, invasive, and difficult to deploy across remote locations and new sites. Emerging environmental DNA approaches improve accessibility by enabling sensitive, non-invasive detection of species presence or absence directly from water samples, but they cannot measure population health. This highlights the need for enhanced genomic monitoring tools that retain the benefits of non-invasive sampling while providing the population health insights currently missing.

Solution

We are integrating environmental sampling, traditional walleye assessments, and advanced molecular techniques to develop a non-invasive method for tracking spawning progression. In collaboration with Manitoba Fisheries, water samples are collected alongside net captures on Lake Winnipeg, where eRNA is extracted for analysis. This approach enables quantification of key reproductive markers in female and male walleye and allows molecular signals to be calibrated against ecological data to assess spawning activity.

Impact

This project will establish molecular tools for reliabily monitoring walleye spawning progression, creating a framework that can be applied across lakes throughout Manitoba. By enabling non-invasive detection of spawning activity and population health with minimal additional effort, these methods will expand monitoring capacity and reduce reliance on labour-intensive traditional approaches. Ultimately, this work will support evidence-based fisheries management and contribute to the long-term sustainability of walleye and other wild fish populations across the province.