Paul Venturelli

• PhD
• Associate Professor at Ball State University

The growing popularity of digital catch logs may present a low‐cost opportunity to monitor climate change effects on the distribution and relative abundance of game fishes over large spatial scales. We analyzed data from a popular fishing app to identify spatiotemporal trends in freshwater game fish catches throughout the contiguous the United Stat...

The role of the ICES Working Group on Recreational Fisheries Surveys (WGRFS) is to compile and validate data from European countries' recreational fisheries and contribute to the ICES advisory process regarding marine recreational fisheries (MRF) issues. In 2023, WGRFS actively engaged in various aspects of MRF, involving the consolidation and eval...

Preventing the spread of aquatic invasive species is an important management action. Identifying the characteristics of lakes that are susceptible to invasion creates an opportunity for management groups to prioritize limited resources for high-risk areas. In this study, we leveraged big data from a popular fishing app and other publicly available...

Objective We hypothesized online text can provide insight into the satisfaction of anglers who post on online forums. Methods We applied sentiment analysis to almost 3 years of management‐related posts on online angling forums to estimate the long‐term satisfaction of Walleye Sander vitreus anglers in nine U.S. states. Result Sentiment varied fou...

It is well recognized that COVID-19 lockdowns impacted human interactions with natural ecosystems. One example is recreational fishing, which, in developed countries, involves approximately 10% of people. Fishing licence sales and observations at angling locations suggest that recreational fishing effort increased substantially during lockdowns. Ho...

The global COVID-19 pandemic resulted in many jurisdictions implementing orders restricting the movements of people to inhibit virus transmission, with recreational angling often either not permitted or access to fisheries and/or related infrastructure being prevented. Following the lifting of restrictions, initial angler surveys and licence sales...

The ICES Working Group on Recreational Fisheries Surveys (WGRFS) role is to summarize, and quality assure recreational fishery data and feed into the ICES advisory process on marine recreational fisheries (MRF) issues. In 2022, WGRFS continued to work on many aspects of MRF including collation and review of national survey programmes; assessment of...

It is manifest that COVID-19 lockdowns extensively impacted human interactions with natural ecosystems. One example is recreational fishing, an activity which involves nearly 1 in 10 people in developed countries. Fishing licence sales and direct observations at popular angling locations suggest that recreational fishing effort increased substantia...

Degree-days (DD) are a useful metric for describing the thermal scope for fish growth and other physiological processes, but there is a lack of advice about how to calculate DD for a given fish species. In particular, appropriate values for the base temperature for growth (T0) are unknown for most fish species. Previous work showed that inappropria...

Little is known about the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on recreational fisheries compliance. Starting in 2015, we monitored recreational fishing activity in Rockfish Conservation Areas (RCAs) with trail cameras overlooking RCAs around Galiano Island, Canada. We also carried out in-person surveys with recreational fishers at marinas and docks to...

Inland fisheries assessment and management are challenging given the inherent complexity of working in diverse habitats (e.g., rivers, lakes, wetlands) that are dynamic on organisms that are often cryptic and where fishers are often highly mobile. Yet, technoscience is offering new tools that have the potential to reimagine how inland fisheries are...

Human activities are the leading cause of biological invasions that cause ecologic and economic damage around the world. Aquatic invasive species (AIS) are often spread by recreational anglers who visit two or more bodies of water within a short time frame. Movement data from anglers are, therefore, critical to predicting, preventing, and monitorin...

(read-only version: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/5KWZUPEPKC4RUVWP2YCS?target=10.1002/fsh.10695) The Ten Steps to Responsible Inland Fisheries are global recommendations to address the subordinate position of inland fisheries in sustainability dialogues. Regional and local perspectives are essential for implementing global initiativ...

Lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) populations have significantly declined across their historic range, in large part due to anthropogenic impacts that have likely been exacerbated by the life-history traits of this slow-growing and long-lived species. We developed a population model to explore how Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs) impact l...

The need for yield research is increasing with the popularity of aquaponic food production systems where plants and fish are grown together in a recirculating system. Our objective was to compare the yield of three basil cultivars (“Elenora,” “Genovese,” “Nufar,” Ocimum basilicum) in four configurations (greenhouses: floating raft DWS, ebb & flow,...

Growing interest in apps to collect recreational-fisheries data requires that relationships between self-reported data and other fisheries data are evaluated, and that potential biases are assessed. This study compared results from a mobile-phone application and website for anglers (MyCatch) to results from three types of fisheries surveys — 1 prov...

There are often limited data available to support the sustainable management of recreational fisheries. Electronic citizen science platforms (e.g., smartphone applications) offer a cost-effective alternative to traditional survey methods — but these data must be validated. We compared sea trout (Salmo trutta) data from a Danish citizen science plat...

Improper storage conditions or processing of milk leads to potential spoilage and illness, due in part to temperature abuse, allowing bacteria present to grow and spoil the product. However, certain proteins naturally found in raw milk, such as lactoferrin, have reported antibacterial properties. The levels of lactoferrin required to effectively in...

Technology that is developed for or adopted by the recreational fisheries sector (e.g., anglers and the recreational fishing industry) has led to rapid and dramatic changes in how recreational anglers interact with fisheries resources. From improvements in finding and catching fish to emulating their natural prey and accessing previously inaccessib...

Smartphone applications (apps) that target recreational fishers are growing in abundance. These apps have the potential to provide data useful for management of recreational fisheries. We surveyed expert opinion in 20, mostly European, countries to assess the current and future status of app use in marine recreational fisheries. The survey revealed...

Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) are ubiquitous, present in complex chemical mixtures, and represent a threat to the Great Lake ecosystem. Mitigation strategies are needed to protect populations of key species, but knowledge about ecological and biological effects of CECs at the population level are limited. In this study, we combined labora...

Heterosporis sutherlandae is an invasive microsporidian parasite in the Great Lakes region of North America that infects the skeletal muscle of numerous fish species, rendering the filet unfit for human consumption. Although H. sutherlandae has been identified as a pathogen of concern by state management agencies, there is little information to inf...

Citizen science platforms, including smartphone applications, that allow anglers to report information about fishing trips and catches may be a low-cost source of data that can feed into the science and management of recreational fisheries. However, information about potential biases in these data, such as the representativeness of user characteris...

The St. Louis River Estuary is a designated Area of Concern by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency due to severe environmental degradation. Uncertain is the spatial ecology of muskellunge Esox masquinongy, an indicator species, within the estuary and the large, connected water body, Lake Superior. We collected genetic samples and used passive...

The present study systematically investigated the effects of warehouse and greenhouse aquaponic growing conditions on consumer acceptability of different basil cultivars. A total of 105 consumers rated their liking of three basil cultivars (Nufar, Genovese, and Eleonora), each grown in three conditions (aquaponically in a greenhouse, aquaponically...

Recreational fisheries hold immense ecological, social, and economic value. The management of these fisheries is increasingly important as we move forward in the Anthropocene. Recreational fisheries managers face several challenges as fisheries often involve diverse social and ecological systems comprised of complex feedback and stakeholder motivat...

Population effects of stressors, such as toxic chemicals or increased temperatures, affecting the energy budgets of organisms are mediated by predation pressure and food availability. However, these two population contexts have mostly been considered separately. Moreover, because the sensitivity of the different pathways of energy to stress may dif...

Aquaponics, the combination of hydroponics and aquaculture into one growing system, is a controlled environment production system that potentially has increased environmental and consumer benefits over traditional production methods. There are many different ways to configure aquaponics systems that include different fish species, water circulation...

Understanding population-level effects of environmental stressors on aquatic biota requires knowledge of the direct adverse effects of pollutants on individuals and species interactions that relate to survival and reproduction. Here, we connect behavioural assays with survival trials and a modelling approach to quantify changes in antipredator esca...

Degree-days (DD) are an effective metric for quantifying the thermal opportunity for ectotherm growth. There is strong empirical evidence to suggest that DD are useful for describing fish growth and that immature growth increases linearly with DD. However, fish ecology lags behind other disciplines in the widespread adoption of DD. We provide (1) a...

Heterosporis sutherlandae is an emerging microsporidian fish parasite in the Great Lakes region. H. sutherlandae forms lesions in the muscle tissue of fishes important to aquaculture and sport fishing. These lesions render the filet inedible and may have fitness consequences. We evaluated the prevalence and severity of H. sutherlandae among yellow...

Results of Beverton-Holt equilibrium yield model for male yellow perch. (A) Yield and (C) mean weight of catch projections using the Jones modification of the Beverton-Holt equilibrium yield model as a function of fishing mortality for male yellow perch. (B) Percent loss of yield and (D) mean weight of catch as compared to no additional instantaneo...

Collection data from Leech Lake yellow perch. This dataset contains all of the field data from the yellow perch collected from Leech Lake. The first column is the number of fish collected. Column B is the date that each fish was collected. Column C refers to location captured (Fig 2). Column H and I are indications of whether a fish contained lesio...

Permission to recreate Fig 1 under creative commons license. (PDF)

Papenfuss JT, Cross T, Venturelli PA. 2018. A comparison of the effects of water-level policies on the availability of walleye spawning habitat in a boreal reservoir. Lake Reserv Manage. 00:1–12. Water levels in reservoirs can affect the quantity and quality of the habitat that is available for spawning fish and their eggs. We studied how a change...

Attendance at professional conferences is well-studied, but few studies have analyzed presentation attendance within a conference. Understanding why some presentations attract larger audiences than others can be useful for both presenters and conference organizers. To this end, we applied a random forest model to data from 1676 presentations at the...

1. Several new growth models have been proposed to account for the life-history tradeoffs that occur when indeterminately-growing species allocate energy between somatic growth and reproduction. These models can improve the understanding of lifetime growth and life-history, but can be more difficult to fit than conventional growth models. Increased...

Aquatic invasive species (AIS) are of concern in North America due to their devastating impacts on ecosystems and economies. The Great Lakes region is particularly vulnerable to AIS introduction and establishment with at least 184 nonindigenous species reported in this region from a large number of taxa including viruses, bacteria, diatoms, protozo...

Aquaponics is the integration of aquaculture and hydroponics to grow fish and plants together in one system. Many producers in the northern United States are attracted to aquaponics for its potential to produce indoors year‐round. However, little is known about consumer preferences for products grown in aquaponic systems. To address this knowledge...

Papenfuss JT, Cross T, Venturelli PA. 2017. Comparing water-level policies in a boreal reservoir: how wave and ice energy can help maintain walleye spawning habitat. Lake Reserve Manage. 00:00–00. Water levels in reservoirs affect the timing and depth of wave and ice forces that help maintain walleye (Sander vitreus) spawning habitat. We studied ho...

Age-at-maturity (AAM) is a key life history trait that provides insight into ecology, evolution, and population dynamics. However, maturity data can be costly to collect or may not be available. Life history theory suggests that growth is biphasic for many organisms, with a change-point in growth occurring at maturity. If so, then it should be poss...

Fisheries stock assessments are essential for science-based fisheries management. Inland fisheries pose challenges, but also provide opportunities for biological assessments that differ from those encountered in large marine fisheries for which many of our assessment methods have been developed. These include the number and diversity of fisheries,...

Recreational fisheries surveys are limited in time and place in many countries. This lack of data limits scientific understanding and sustainable management. Smartphone applications (apps) allow anglers to record the details of their fishing trips and catches. In this study, we describe the opportunities and challenges associated with angler apps a...

Overexploitation of a single target species often results in fish community changes. Commercial and recreational overexploitation of walleye (Sander vitreus) in Shoal Lake, Ontario, in the early 1980s resulted in a ban on walleye fishing. In this study, we summarize potential changes in the catch-per-unit-effort of large-bodied fishes (abundance an...

Phenotypic variation within populations is common in many salmonids, especially when inhabiting northern postglacial systems. We compared life-history traits among four lake trout morphs co-existing in the shallowwaters of Great Bear Lake (Northwest Territories, Canada). Adult growth rate, age- and size-at-maturity, and survival differed among morp...

Phenotypic variation within populations is common in many salmonids, especially when inhabiting northern postglacial systems. We compared life-history traits among four lake trout morphs co-existing in the shallow-waters of Great Bear Lake (Northwest Territories, Canada). Adult growth rate, age- and size-at-maturity, and survival differed among mor...

Successfully managing fisheries and controlling the spread of invasive species depends on the ability to describe and predict angler behavior. However, finite resources restrict conventional survey approaches and tend to produce retrospective data that are limited in time or space and rely on intentions or attitudes rather than actual behavior. In...

Size-selective harvesting is assumed to alter life histories of exploited fish populations, thereby negatively affecting population productivity, recovery, and yield. However, demonstrating that fisheries-induced phenotypic changes in the wild are at least partly genetically determined has proved notoriously difficult. Moreover, the population-leve...

Although partial migration, a phenomenon in which some individuals in a population conduct seasonal migrations while others remain resident, is common among animals, its importance in facilitating biological invasions has not been demonstrated. To illustrate how partial migration might facilitate invasions in spatially complex habitats, we develope...

The factors responsible for the lifetime growth patterns of percids in natural populations can provide meaningful insights for culture operations. Here, we present a summary of a number of well-studied factors and review the current state of knowledge. We illustrate an informative approach to describe lifetime growth of percid species by applying a...

Smallmouth Bass Micropterus dolomieu is an invasive fish for which few control methods have been developed or tested. Adult removal is most common, but this strategy is labor‐intensive and can result in an increase in population abundance (i.e., overcompensation). Using a stage‐structured matrix model, we tested removal of young of the year as a co...

The degree-day (DD) is a method of describing the thermal opportunity for growth and development and is becoming increasingly popular when comparing fish growth over large spatial scales (e.g., counter-gradient growth). Temperatures too cold to permit growth are excluded in the DD equation by incorporating a lower temperature threshold (To). Howeve...

A simple population model was developed to evaluate the role of plastic and evolutionary life-history changes on sustainable exploitation rates. Plastic changes are embodied in density-dependent compensatory adjustments to somatic growth rate and larval/juvenile survival, which can compensate for the reductions in reproductive lifetime and mean pop...

Degree-days (DD) are an increasingly popular method for explaining variation in fish growth and development. By including a base temperature (To) the DD formula limits calculations to temperatures that are relevant to growth. However, our review of growth studies shows multiple To values in use for a given fish species. To determine how To affects...

In this review, we (i) describe smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu Lacepède, 1802) invasions past, present, and future; (ii) summarize the impact that this species can have on native communities; and (iii) describe and discuss various options for control. M. dolomieu are invasive throughout much of the United States, southern portions of Canada,...

Bull trout Salvelinus confluentus are of conservation concern throughout much of their range, in part because of displacement by and hybridization with nonnative brook trout S. fontinalis . Hybridization between these species can complicate efforts to control brook trout because hybrids are often difficult to distinguish from parental species. Here...

We used a field experiment, population modeling, and an analysis of 30 years of data from walleye (Sander vitreus; a freshwater fish) in Lake Erie to show that maternal influences on offspring survival can affect population dynamics. We first demonstrate experimentally that the survival of juvenile walleye increases with egg size (and, to a lesser...

Growing degree-days (GDD, Cdays) are an index of ambient thermal energy that relates directly to an ectotherms cumulative metabolism but is rarely used to describe growth and development in fish. We applied GDD to length and maturity data from 416 populations of walleye (Sander vitreus) from Ontario and Quebec, Canada (mean annual GDD= 1200 to 2300...

Knowledge of the relationship between the number of offspring produced (recruitment) and adult abundance is fundamental to forecasting the dynamics of an exploited population. Although small-scale experiments have documented the importance of maternal quality to offspring survival in plants and animals, the effects of this association on the recrui...

Diverse empirische Arbeiten haben belegt, daß Angler zum Rückgang von Fischbestände beitragen können. Allerdings sind diese Studien vornehmlich außerhalb Deutschlands durchgeführt worden und werden daher hierzulande gerne negiert. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird der derzeitige Erkenntnisstand zu dokumentierten Entnahmeraten in der Angelfischerei un...

The northern pike Esox lucius is a renowned piscivore, but will prey opportunistically on invertebrates (e.g., in small lakes of boreal Alberta, where winterkill can unexpectedly reduce or eliminate prey fishes). We emulated such a disturbance by stocking a fishless lake with northern pike and then monitored their diet and growth over two summers....

Recent comparative studies suggest that macroinvertebrates in small Boreal Plains lakes respond to large fluctuations in fish densities caused by winterkill and subsequent recovery even when such fluctuations involve the normally piscivorous northern pike (Esox lucius). We introduced pike into a boreal lake made fishless by a past winterkill to iso...