Late in the 20^th Century, participants in a trans-jurisdictional fisheries research network in the Great Laurentian Basin collaborated with participants of other research networks (waterfowl, piscivorous birds, benthic insects, plankton, bacteria, meteorology, hydrology, etc.) in a mega-scale happening during the years 1967 to 1992 that I call ‘The Great Laurentian Spring'. With a basin-wide version of adaptive management, the scientific researchers collaborated with citizen activists, private entrepreneurs, commission facilitators and governmental administrators in remediating harm done to the natural living features of the Great Laurentian Basin, particularly in the preceding 150 years. Like the degradation process that preceded it, the remediation process had features of a self-organizing movement that became complex beyond the ability of participants and observers to fully describe and explain it. Here I offer as an hypothesis, a rough sketch of how fisheries networkers in the Great Laurentian Basin came to play a role of helping to conserve valued fisheries and preserve vulnerable species during the degrading pre-Great Laurentian Spring period and then to help remediate harmful stresses, rehabilitate fisheries and prevent further degradation during the Great Laurentian Spring period and since then. In general fisheries researchers performed empirical science in responsible ways, with emphasis on the fish and on their habitats, and thus on the health of the aquatic ecosystems. Occasionally, the strongly modified natural system could be managed to produce major fisheries benefits, at least temporarily. The Scot T. Reid's Common Sense science contributed to the American C.S. Peirce's Pragmatism and together they informed the German A. Thienemann's Limnology and the Canadians W.E. Ricker's and F.E.J. Fry's Fisheries Science. All along, mathematics of increasing sophistication played a role. Reputable criticisms of scientific inferences as well as untested and disreputable rhetoric of science deniers were taken seriously by the researchers.

Throughout his career, Dr. Henry Regier's science and scholarship includes numerous contributions that cross disciplines and inform policy. This review of examples of his politically-relevant science publications spans six decades. Regier's publications emphasize themes that cross the various boundaries of expert-layperson, state actors-society, public-private, and government-academic sectors. His writings provide several lessons for fishery and aquatic scientists and managers throughout the Great Lakes Basin and beyond: advocate, provoke, network and combine the dualities of idealism and pragmatism.

Annual bottom trawl surveys were initiated in the 1970s in Laurentian Great Lakes Superior, Huron, Michigan and Ontario and in 1990 in Erie to provide annual assessments of the status and trends of prey fish communities. Native Cisco Coregonus artedi and Bloater C. hoyi dominated the prey fish community of Lake Superior. Prey fish communities in lakes Huron and Michigan were dominated by nonnative Rainbow Smelt Osmerus mordax and Alewife Alosa pseudoharengus for much of 1978-2016, but Bloater was an important species during the 1980-1990s and more recently has become the dominant prey species in these lakes. Alewife dominated the prey fish community of Lake Ontario during all 1978-2016. While nonnatives dominated the prey fish community in Lake Erie, native Emerald Shiner Notropis atherinoides was an important species and occasionally the dominant prey fish after the establishment of Round Goby Neogobius melanostomus in the late 1990s. During the 1980s-1990s Bythotrephes cederstroemi, Dreissena polymorpha, and Dreissena bugensis caused profound changes in Laurentian Great Lakes ecosystems and likely contributed to declines in fish community biomass in lakes Michigan and Huron. The impacts of these invaders were more muted in lakes Erie and Ontario. Lake Superior stands out as the Laurentian Great Lakes success story: Lake Trout Salvelinus namaycush was restored, and native prey fishes dominate and support a viable fishery. Although the abundance of Bloater has increased recently in lakes Huron and Michigan, recovery of native prey fishes remains uncertain. The absence of native species among the principal prey fish in Lake Ontario indicates a lack of progress in native fish recovery. Recovery of native prey fishes remains unclear in Lake Erie. The ever-changing state of the Laurentian Great Lakes caused by the impacts of invasive species and ongoing climate and ecosystem change will continue to challenge restoration of native fish communities in the 21st Century.

Cisco Coregonus artedi are a schooling, coldwater, zooplanktivorous fish native to the northern United States and Canada. They were once one of the most abundant fish species in the region, supporting large commercial fisheries in all five of the Great Lakes. Overfishing, habitat degradation, and impacts from invasive species such as Rainbow Smelt Osmerus mordax and Alewife Alosa pseudoharengus lead to the collapse of these fisheries by the mid 1900's. Recently, there has been an increased momentum for restoring Cisco populations in the Great Lakes due to their role as native prey fish species for predators such as Lake Trout Salvelinus namaycush and Atlantic Salmon Salmo salar. Here I present a general overview of Cisco biology, detail the history of the commercial fishery in the Great Lakes, and look ahead to future restoration and recovery goals.

The Lake Ontario drainage basin has been considered the most productive of all the deepwater Laurentian Great Lakes for fish production and extremely valuable for its historical commercial fisheries catches. Historical accounts are replete with this productivity, especially when referencing Atlantic Salmon populations. In addition to Atlantic Salmon, Lake Ontario contained a diverse coldwater fish community dominated by Lake Trout, whitefishes (Coregoninae), and Burbot along with rich cool and warmwater fish communities. Lake Ontario also contained marine relict species, such as Harbour Seal, Threespine Stickleback, and possibly Sea Lamprey, Rainbow Smelt and Alewife along with the catadromous American Eel. Following European colonization of the watershed, extensive land-use change, overfishing, dam construction, habitat degradation, pollution, and invasive species all contributed to the decline and extirpation of many native species and shifts in aquatic species communities. This chronology is meant to provide context and inform expectations regarding productivity of Lake Ontario and contributing watersheds for developing more comprehensive resource management plans, guidelines, and policy.

The history of the Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar), also referred to as Salmon below, in Lake Ontario is an accumulation of authentic published accounts, which were almost completed by J. R. Dymond before his death. H. H. MacKay completed the work on Dymond's behalf (Dymond and MacKay, unpublished, 1966), but it remained largely unknown. The present authors (MEB, EH, PWB) have sought to present an updated subset of Dymond and MacKay's work as the history of Lake Ontario Salmon is a crucial story in the history of the Great Lakes and its fisheries. The information provided should add materially to the knowledge of the causes that led to the decline and ultimate extirpation of a fascinating and valuable fish, notwithstanding all the efforts that were made to restore it by artificial means.

Watersheds in southern Ontario are of high conservation concern due to their diverse fish communities, productive environments, and threats from numerous anthropogenic stressors. The Credit River watershed, located west of the Greater Toronto Area, has over 60 fish species, and multiple stressors including urbanization, climate change, and aquatic invasive species. This study examines fish community change in the Credit River watershed. Historical fish datasets collected in the watershed from 1954 to 2015 were analyzed to examine richness patterns, temporal trends in species distributions, and faunal similarity at the site and sub-watershed levels. Species richness increased over time at the site and sub-watershed level, displaying predictable richness patterns due to anthropogenic introductions and changes in sampling methods. Species distribution patterns remained largely stable over time with decreases in some species (e.g. Redside Dace) and increases in others (e.g. Largemouth Bass). Faunal similarity also increased over time at the site and sub-watershed level, indicating that the fish communities in the Credit River are homogenizing.

One of the mandated charges to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission is to facilitate the coordination of Great Lakes fishery management across jurisdictions. To do this, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission organized annual lake committee meetings among Great Lake fishery professionals since 1964. Our objective was to describe the role of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission in facilitating communication among fishery jurisdictions that fueled the development of ecosystem-based management principles in the basin. Meeting minutes from lake committee meetings and publications from the Great Lakes Fishery Commission-facilitated Salmonid Community of Oligotrophic Lakes workshop were coded based on 12 a priori ecosystem-based management principles. Meeting and workshop attendance data were analyzed through a bipartite network analysis (organizations connected to meetings) to determine if attendance at meetings were grouped, or clustered, within the fishery governance network. No significant clusters were detected, demonstrating that during 1970-75 fishery professionals in Great Lakes were cooperative in nature – in contrast to the prior half century where little cross-jurisdictional management was reported. Our analyses based on meeting attendance and coded discussions at the meetings demonstrated that three ecosystem-based management perspectives were discussed prior to 1972 (ecological integrity, hierarchical context, and humans embedded in nature) whereas discussions at lake committee meetings from 1972-74 and the Salmonid Community of Oligotrophic Lakes workshop influenced discussions about data collection, ecosystem boundaries, and hierarchical context at lake committee meetings in 1975. The Great Lakes Fishery Commission played a bridging role in facilitating communication among Great Lakes jurisdictions. These annual meetings were becoming a forum for professionals to collaboratively discuss fishery management issues, thereby advancing ecosystem-based management principles throughout the basin. Ultimately discussions at lake committee meetings helped contribute to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission and allied fishery management organizations agreeing to manage Great Lakes fisheries under ecosystem-based management through the ratification of A Joint Strategic Plan for Management of Great Lakes Fisheries in 1981.

Fisheries are coupled human and natural systems across space and time, involving movements of fish, money, and information in a globalized world. However, these social-ecological interactions over local to global scales are largely absent from the fisheries literature, as fisheries research to date has often been discipline- and location-specific. We analyzed this knowledge gap by using an emerging coupled human and natural systems research paradigm – the telecoupling framework – to investigate social-ecological interactions over distances (i.e. telecouplings) in the Great Lakes salmonine (i.e. Coho Salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch, Chinook Salmon O. tshawytscha) fishery. Since the 1960s, this fishery has involved telecoupled movements of fish, money, and information over relatively long distances facilitated by numerous individual and organizational agents. These telecouplings have been characterized by diverse social-ecological causes (e.g. decline of commercial fisheries, rising incomes and greater leisure time for recreational fishing) and effects (e.g. salmonine stocking, creation of angling- and tourism-based economies). Telecouplings are critical for fisheries professionals to consider because they promote holistic understanding of fisheries management while occasionally confounding conservation efforts (e.g. salmonine stocking spreads diseases and parasites and changes fish community structure and genetic integrity). Hence, fisheries professionals will benefit from using the telecoupling framework to optimize favorable and reduce unfavorable telecouplings and thereby enhance fisheries management programs. Overall, the telecoupling framework advances fisheries science by enabling fisheries professionals to systematically understand the causes and consequences of complex social-ecological fisheries interactions and develop informed strategies for sustainable fisheries management and governance throughout the Great Lakes and the world.

Fisheries productivity in the Laurentian Great Lakes has changed dramatically over the past century. Invasions of non-native species and anthropogenically induced environmental changes in habitat quality and quantity have significantly altered the species composition and abundance of Great Lakes fishes, thereby affecting the social and economic well-being of coastal communities that rely on the good and services that these fishes provide. Our increased ability to locate, access, catch, preserve, and transport fish while modifying their habitats has resulted in the loss of native fish populations, which has profoundly impacted the ecological functioning and thus the productivity, structure, and services of Great Lakes ecosystems. Further, our lack of predictable scientific knowledge and control over factors affecting the productivity of the various Great Lakes fisheries, coupled with the failure of fisheries governance systems to manage these resources sustainably, have often left Great Lakes commercial, recreational, and subsistence fisheries and their local fishing communities impoverished and in disarray. In this paper, we discuss the environmental, cultural, and socioeconomic changes that have characterized the Great Lakes basin in the last century. We also share our perspectives and personal stories about the impacts of these changes on ecosystems, fisheries, and the local and regional communities and economies that depend on them for their health and well-being. A key lesson learned was, that if we are to ensure the integrity and productivity of Great Lakes fisheries in the future, we must become better stewards, possessing a more predictable scientific and ecosystem-based understanding of fishes and their habitats while communicating the value of fisheries in food, recreational opportunities, and the economic and social wealth of local communities. The fate of Great Lakes fisheries and the quality of life of the people who use these resources are inextricably linked and can only be sustained in productive, well-governed, and well-balanced fisheries managed holistically at the ecosystem level.