# A Geospatial Approach to Improving Fish Species Detection in Maumee Bay, Lake Erie
## 2 Methods
### Fish Sampling  
From 2013-2016 a target of 15 \"traditional\" sampling sites per year for each gear type, electrofishing, paired fyke nets, and bottom trawling, were sampled using randomly generated locations determined with ArcGIS 10.1/10.2 in Maumee Bay. Gear types and site selection procedures were based on recommendations from [PERSON] et al. (2017), USFWS (2018), and [PERSON] (2019). Five \"hot spot\" sites were added to the 15 traditional sites (20 sites total) for each gear type in 2017 to evaluate the addition of targeted sampling locations (Figure 1). The methods to determine the hot spot sites are detailed in Section 2.3. When a site was unable to be sampled (e.g., wrong depth, inaccessible), the site could be moved up to 1 km to a more suitable location, or a new site was selected from a list of previously allocated randomized alternate locations.  
Electrofishing was conducted from a boat at night (between one hour after sunset and one hour before sunrise), in water depths of 1-3 m. Electrofishing occurred along the shoreline, for a total electrofishing time of 10 min per sampling site. Multiple electrofishing boats were used over the course of the study with two boats using a Smith-Root (5.0 and 7.5 GPP [generator powered pulsator]) electrofishing system, and one boat using a Midwest Lake Electrofishing System (MLES; Infinity 40 amp) with a 60-Hz pulsed DC and 40% duty cycle. Electrofishing was not conducted in 2013 and 2015 due to logistical constraints.  
Paired fyke nets with 4.7 mm stretch-mesh netting were created by attaching two 0.9 m \(\times\) 1.2 m fyke nets to a 15.0 m \(\times\) 0.9 m lead. Individual nets consisted of two rectangular frames 0.9 m \(\times\) 1.2 m, followed by four circular rings 0.9 m in diameter. Paired fyke  
Figure 1: Maumee Bay showing 2017 sampling sites (both traditional and hot spot) by gear type and gradients of interpolated fish species richness z-scores from the hot spot analysis using randomly sampled data from 20132016 (see Section 2.3). Warm colors indicate higher species richness and cool colors indicate areas with lower species richness. The bottom trawl interpolated surface in the bottom right is within the 2 m or greater depth contour. The hot spot target zone, black diagonal lines, contains z-scores \(\geq\) 1.96.  
nets were set parallel to the shoreline in water depths of 1-2 m. Nets were set during the day and remained in the water overnight for a period of 12-24 hours.  
Bottom trawling was conducted using a [PERSON] design otter trawl with a 4.9 m head rope, 3.8 cm stretch mesh body, and a 3.1 mm stretch mesh cod end. Trawl tows were performed at depths greater than 2 m along contours at a speed of approximately 4 km/h for 5 min.  
Sampling occurred from 27 August-18 September 2013; 25 August-27 October 2014; 31 August-15 September 2015; 29 August-5 October 2016; and 14 August-27 September 2017. All fish were identified to species. If a fish could not be identified in the field, the specimen was preserved in 95% ethanol or frozen and morphologically identified in the laboratory. When morphological identification was not possible, a fin clip was preserved in 95% ethanol for genetic identification at the USFWS Whitney Genetics Lab.