Parentage Analysis for Stocked and Wild Caught Lake Sturgeon in Lake Superior | F19AS00216

Opportunity Information: Apply for F19AS00216

This grant opportunity focuses on using genetic parentage and sibship analysis to evaluate how well lake sturgeon stocking and natural reproduction efforts are maintaining healthy genetic diversity in Lake Superior tributaries. Lake sturgeon are a long-lived, slow-to-mature species that has been reduced or lost from many Great Lakes rivers, so rebuilding populations is not just about producing more fish, but also about making sure restored populations reflect broad representation of the spawning adults and do not unintentionally drift toward low diversity or high relatedness. The project is centered on streamside rearing and stocking work conducted in Michigan's Ontonagon River system, paired with genetic reconstruction of family relationships among wild-caught fry from other key rivers.

A major driver for the work is uncertainty about whether the current hatchery-style mating and rearing procedures produce an even genetic contribution across parents. In the described process, eggs and milt are collected from adult lake sturgeon captured during spawning in the Sturgeon River in Baraga County, Michigan. Adults are crossed using a controlled design (reported as a 14:5 female:male ratio). For each female, her eggs are divided into separate batches, and each batch is fertilized with milt from a single male. After fertilization, the batches are recombined back into one group for that female and then reared together through the season. While this method is intended to spread a female's offspring across multiple males, recombining fertilized batches can still lead to unequal survival among families due to differences in fertilization success, early development, disease resistance, handling effects, or density and competition in rearing. If some families consistently dominate survival, stocking could unintentionally represent only a narrow slice of the intended parental pool.

To address that concern, the project will genotype stocked fish and assign each juvenile back to its parents, allowing managers to quantify how many offspring each adult actually contributed to the final stocked cohort. Fin tissue samples are collected from each fingerling at the time of stocking, creating a direct, fish-by-fish genetic record of the stocking product. Parentage analysis will then estimate family sizes, identify over- or under-represented breeders, and provide a practical measure of whether the mating design is achieving its goal of broad genetic representation. Those results can inform changes to mating schemes, rearing practices, or selection of spawners in future years to better preserve effective population size and long-term adaptive potential.

In addition to the hatchery/stocking evaluation, the opportunity includes reconstructing sibship relationships among fry collected from the Sturgeon River and the St. Louis River. This part of the work aims to infer how many adults successfully spawned in the wild (the number of contributing spawners) and to estimate their genotypes indirectly from offspring data. Sibship reconstruction helps managers understand real-world reproductive success and whether natural reproduction is being driven by many adults or just a few highly successful individuals. This provides a window into the genetic health and resilience of existing populations, especially in systems where capturing and sampling all spawning adults is difficult.

The funding instrument is a cooperative agreement, meaning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is expected to be actively involved rather than simply issuing a grant and stepping back. The Ashland Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office (FWCO) plays a central role over multiple years. USFWS staff will capture spawning adults for gamete collection, design and implement annual mating schemes, fertilize eggs, rear fish through hatch, and provide daily care for roughly 4 to 5 months each year until the juveniles are ready to stock. At stocking, the Service will measure, weigh, and tag each fish and collect the fin clip tissue samples that will be sent for genetic analysis. Ashland FWCO will also coordinate sample analysis logistics, troubleshoot issues, distribute genetic results to partner agencies, and participate as co-authors on resulting presentations and publications.

This notice is not a typical competitive funding opportunity. It is explicitly a notice of intent to make a single-source award to West Virginia University (WVU) under an internal justification (505DM 2.14B.(4)), and it states there is no application process. The rationale for the sole-source approach is that WVU's genomics laboratory has led Lake Superior lake sturgeon population genetic work for more than a decade, already holds the baseline genetic reference data for Great Lakes lake sturgeon, and has experience analyzing cohort genetic diversity in other Lake Superior populations. Using the existing reference datasets and established analytical pipeline is presented as the most economical and efficient way to complete parentage and sibship reconstruction while ensuring continuity with prior regional assessments.

Key administrative details include: Funding Opportunity Number F19AS00216; Agency: Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; category: discretionary; instrument type: cooperative agreement; activity area: environment and natural resources; CFDA number 15.662. The expected number of awards is one, with an award ceiling of $186,882. The posting dates indicate the opportunity was created May 22, 2019, with an original closing date of May 30, 2019, reflecting its role as a formal notice rather than an open solicitation.

Overall, the project is designed to answer a straightforward but high-impact management question: are stocking and natural reproduction efforts producing genetically diverse, well-represented cohorts that support long-term recovery of lake sturgeon in Lake Superior tributaries? By pairing hands-on field and hatchery operations led by USFWS with specialized genetic analysis performed by WVU, the work aims to produce actionable metrics on breeder contribution, family structure, and the effective number of spawners, all of which directly influence how restoration programs are evaluated and refined over time.

• The Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service in the environment, natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Parentage Analysis for Stocked and Wild Caught Lake Sturgeon in Lake Superior" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.662.
• This funding opportunity was created on May 22, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by May 30, 2019 There is not an application process for this funding opportunity. This is a notice of intent to award a single source cooperative agreement to West Virginia University under justification 505DM 2.14B.(4).. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $186,882.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for F19AS00216

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