Great Lakes Food Web Diagrams

GLERL has developed food web diagrams for all of the Great Lakes and Lake St. Clair. The major species in each lake are briefly described, along with a diagram summarizing the ecosystem energy flow (who eats or is eaten by whom!). These diagrams are based on a model from a paper published in 2003 supported by both NOAA and the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. Summarizing the model results in diagram form was accomplished by GLERL’s Sea Grant Extension Educator. They were updated and modified for each lake by a host of researchers.

Food web diagram of Lake Superior Food web diagram of Lake Michigan Food web diagram of Lake Huron
Lake Superior (.pdf) Lake Michigan (.pdf) Lake Huron (.pdf)
Food web diagram of Lake St. Clair Food web diagram of Lake Erie Food web diagram of Lake Ontario
Lake St. Clair (.pdf) Lake Erie (.pdf) Lake Ontario (.pdf)

Cited Reference

Krause, A. E., K. A. FRANK, D. M. MASON, R. E. Ulanowicz, and W. W. Taylor. Compartments revealed in food-web structure. Nature 426:282-285 (2003). (.pdf)