Great Lakes Fishery Commission

Lake Whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) and Cisco (C. artedi) are socioecologically important fishes across the Laurentian Great Lakes region; however, many populations have experienced declining, poor, or sporadic recruitment in recent decades. Increased understanding of the recruitment dynamics and drivers of these two species could help clarify the causes and consequences of recent recruitment trajectories. We characterized the long-term recruitment dynamics and putative biophysical drivers of Lake Whitefish and Cisco in the Laurentian Great Lakes (United States/Canada) and Lake Simcoe (Canada). Here, we provide datasets of year-class strength (i.e., an index of recruitment to the adult population) and predictor variables for analyses of Lake Whitefish and Cisco recruitment variability in six large lakes: Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie, Ontario, and Simcoe. These data can be leveraged in future research on the causes and consequences of recruitment variability for these two species in the Laurentian Great Lakes region.