This species is said to be conspecific with Coregonus autumnalis, but is treated separately here. It appeared on the Red List from 1996 to 2006 incorrectly spelt as Coregonus artedii.

The number of salmonid taxa within some genera (e.g. Salmo, Salvelinus, and Coregonus) listed in various taxonomic databases (e.g. Fishbase or Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes) has increased very rapidly over the past 15-20 years. Many of these taxa are not widely accepted across the international community and are associated with very sparse data, leading to significant difficulty in accurately carrying out Red List assessments. The SSG strongly recommends a rigorous evaluation of the validity of these species designations, which can have real implications where legal protection is reflected by the use of these binomial taxonomic names.

Listed as Least Concern in view of the large extent of occurrence, large number of subpopulations and locations, and large population size, and because the species probably is not declining fast enough to qualify for any of the threatened categories.

This species is widespread in Canada and the northern United States in the Atlantic and Arctic basins from Quebec to Northwest Territories and south to the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes and upper Mississippi River basins, northern Ohio, Illinois, and Minnesota. It is introduced elsewhere (Page and Burr 2011).

This species is represented by hundreds of occurrences (subpopulations, mostly in Canada (Lee et al. 1980). Smith (1985) mapped New York collection sites that would translate into at least two dozen distinct occurrences, but he did not comment on current status.

Total adult population size is unknown. Yule et al. (2013) estimated 182 million in Lake Superior. Historically this has been the most productive commercial species in the Great Lakes (Becker 1983). It was evidently an important commercial species in Lake Michigan until the late 1940s; very rare in the Illinois part of Lake Michigan since then (Smith 1979). Common to abundant in inland lakes in northern Wisconsin, rare to extirpated in Madison area lakes and in several other lakes in Waukesha County (Becker 1981). 

This species declined historically in the Great Lakes region.  Artedi populations have recovered in Lake Superior (Bronte et al. 2003, Stockwell et al. 2009) and are recovering in Lake Huron (Jech et al. 2009). Artedi do remain severely restricted in the remaining Great Lakes.

The species is evidently stable in most of range over the past 10 years or three generations.

Habitat includes open waters of lakes and large rivers; coastal waters of Hudson Bay (Page and Burr 2011). Individuals move into deeper water, to just below the thermocline, in summer. Sometimes this fish occurs in large rivers. Spawning often occurs in shallow water (1-3 m deep) over gravel or stony substrate, but also may occur pelagically in midwater (Great Lakes). Eggs usually are deposited on the bottom. Spring spawners in Lac des Ecorces, Quebec, deposited eggs in the deeper section (20 m) of the lake (Henault and Fortin 1991).

This species declined in Lake Michigan probably because of heavy exploitation and local pollution (Becker 1983) or predation by sea lamprey. After lamprey control, lake herring were still impacted by competition with bloater and introduced alewife (Smith 1979, Becker 1983, Herkert 1992). Mid-1920s decline in Lake Erie was attributed to overfishing or "unfavorable environmental factors" (see Trautman 1981). Selgeby et al. (1978) concluded that neither predation nor competition are factors presently limiting the population in southwestern Lake Superior. Competition with rainbow smelt may explain decline of C. artedi in Lake Saganaga (Etnier and Skelton 2003). Rainbow smelt are believed to be a significant threat in inland lakes (e.g., Evans and Loftus 1987, Hrabik et al. 1998, Etnier and Skelton 2003, Krueger and Hrabik 2005) and the Great Lakes (e.g., Myers et al. 2009, Stockwell et al. 2009). Eutrophication is the greatest threat to populations in inland lakes (Becker 1983). Hybridization with C. hoyi may impede recovery of this species in Lake Huron (Todd and Stedman 1989).

This species is of value in commercial fisheries and as a gamefish.

Currently, this species is of relatively low conservation concern and does not require significant additional protection or major management, monitoring, or research action.