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Illinois Natural History Survey

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Data were collected on plant abundance in Illinois with the goal of determining correlations between the abundance of dominant plant taxa and other plant species.
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These data was collected in conjuction with Upper Mississippi River Restoration-Long Term Resource Monitoring (UMRR-LTRM) element data. The goal of this data collection was to assess age structure of smallmouth buffalo Ictiobus bubalus in the Upper Mississippi River system. Through ongoing UMRR-LTRM efforts, we collected fish with a goal 10 smallmouth buffalo from 20mm length groups, beginning at 100mm of total length. Upon collection fish were measured, weighed and frozen, then transported to the Illinois River Biological Station in Havana Illinois. Upon completion of fish collection, fish were thawed and both lapillus otoliths were removed and a sex determination was made via visual inspection of the gonads. Lapillus...
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Regional Priorities for Focusing Freshwater Mussel Conservation in Streams
While wildlife species do not respect political boundaries, conservation planning and implementation is often restricted by them. Thus, regionally rare species can be placed in the unenviable position of not being prioritized by any jurisdiction that they inhabit due to competition for scarce conservation resources. A regional conservation framework will enable states to cooperate toward common goals and share the costs and accomplishments of regionally conserving at risk species. However, the development of a regional conservation framework is inhibited by patchy species occurrence data. These data gaps can be informed by species distribution models. This project will compile available mussel data, develop species...
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The purpose of this workshop is to identify important hydro- and ecological relationships that will affect the ability of floodplain managers to optimize their approaches to providing: 1) fish habitat; 2) wildlife habitat; 3) nutrient and sediment processing; and 4) flood regulation. The resulting conceptual model will guide future floodplain science, including the development of numerical simulation models of high interest relationships. Twenty participants at the workshop included science experts on each of the four floodplain functions, policy analysts, and floodplain managers faced with making optimization decisions. The workshop report will focus on relationships of greatest need of quantification and how they...
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Predicting climate change effects on riverine aquatic insects in the Upper Midwest
Mayflies (Ephemeroptera), stoneflies (Plecoptera), and caddisflies (Trichoptera) (a.k.a. EPT taxa) are the most environmentally sensitive of freshwater insects. They are utilized the world over as indicators of water quality in flowing waters. Their decline has been documented in Asia, Europe, and North America. A 220,321 record dataset of new and museum EPT specimen records covering much of the Midwest and Maximum Entropy (Maxent) software were used construct to current and future, climate influenced distribution models. Nearly 100 physical and historic vegetation variables and 9 BIOCLIM variables derived from downscaled climate data for the region were employed in this process. A total of 426 EPT species were...
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