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Folders: ROOT > ScienceBase Catalog > LC MAP - Landscape Conservation Management and Analysis Portal > Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Landscape Conservation Cooperative > Projects > Aquatic Habitat Connectivity Projects ( Show all descendants )

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Aging infrastructure is creating a pressing national need to align priorities between civil engineering and other interests. Restoring ecological connectivity of river networks that are fragmented by dams and road crossings has become a prominent objective for environmental managers across the country. A mature decision-support framework and newly available data on the condition of dams throughout the Lake Michigan basin offer unique opportunities to test for potential cost-efficiency gains from sharing the costs of removing decrepit dams between environmental and engineering organizations. At sites where these interests align, genuine win-win scenarios could advance both ecological connectivity and infrastructure...
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The Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Connectivity Collaborative (AHC Collaborative) is working to develop best practices for aquatic connectivity project selection. Over the past decade, a suite of spatial desktop decision support tools has been developed for the Great Lakes region to aid in planning and selection of barrier (i.e. culverts or dams impeding aquatic organism passage) removal or rehabilitation. These tools are, for the most part, under-utilized by decision makers, likely because they do not know the tools exist, where to find them, how to use them, or how they perform in supporting “real life” decisions. We propose to examine the performance of both local, empirical data sets and existing decision support...
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Online decision support tools are proliferating to serve the needs of environmental managers and conservation practitioners, but most are static after their creation. Aging software components and datasets can lead to rapid obsolescence or inoperable tools. In the Great Lakes basin, the Fishwerks webtool represents years of investment in database, website, and analytical development to support decisions about site selection for removing barriers to fish migrations. The website is approaching a critical juncture where usability assessments and long-term planning are needed to ensure its continued value to the user community. There are also technical needs for website refinement, database customization and management,...
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Climate change is expected to alter the distributions and community composition of stream fishes in the Great Lakes region in the 21st century, in part as a result of altered hydrological systems (stream temperature, streamflow, and habitat). Resource managers need information and tools to understand where fish species and stream habitats are expected to change under future conditions. Fish sample collections and environmental variables from multiple sources across the United States Great Lakes Basin were integrated and used to develop empirical models to predict fish species occurrence under present-day climate conditions. Random Forests models were used to predict the probability of occurrence of 13 lotic fish...
Categories: Data, Project; Types: Downloadable, Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service, Shapefile; Tags: 2011, 2011, 2012, 2012, 2013, All tags...
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Brief:Under this project a collaborative and integrated geodatabase of inventoried connectivity barriers within the South Central Lake Superior Basin (SCLSB) was developed to prioritize restoration for more than 2,000 inventoried stream crossings. SUMMARY:KBIC Natural Resources Department received funding through the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Landscape Conservation Cooperative to develop a collaborative and integrated geodatabase of inventoried connectivity barriers within the South Central Lake Superior Basin (SCLSB), to prioritize restoration for more than 2,000 inventoried stream crossings (see Figure 1). This project stemmed from KBIC’s participation in the Partnering for Watershed Restoration Group (PWR),...
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Capacity to prioritize barrier removals in the Great Lakes basin is currently limited by lack of data on the passability of road crossings and dams for both unwanted invasive species and desirable native migratory fishes. Building upon our initial barrier inventory, this project has two key elements. First, we are testing whether our landscape statistical models accurately predict the upstream limits of fish migrations along the Wisconsin coast of Lake Michigan. This involves intensive field work to determine the actual upstream limits of suckers, pike, and steelhead during the spring migration. Second, we are collecting systematic data on the size and condition of dams throughout the Lake Michigan basin. These...
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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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Ecological connectivity between the Great Lakes and their tributaries is widely impaired, and many agencies and organizations are currently investing in restoring these connections to enhance target fish and wildlife populations. To assist in targeting these investments, we have been developing spatial data on the location and attributes of barriers (dams and road-stream crossings) and fish breeding habitat throughout the Great Lakes basin to analyze the optimum strategy for enhancing connectivity and restoring fish migrations. The proposed work will result in guidance for barrier restoration at scales from individual watersheds to the entire basin, refine methodologies for spatial analysis of barriers, and provide...
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Control of invasive sea lamprey recruitment from tributary streams is a major management objective in the Great Lakes, and benefits from barriers that prevent access to spawning habitat. As society moves toward removal of more tributary barriers due to concerns about native migratory fishes, aging infrastructure, and vulnerability to climate-driven flooding, it is important to assess the costs of alternative options for sea lamprey control. This project is integrating cost estimates for application of a lamprey-specific pesticide into cost-benefit optimization models used to support decisions about barrier removals that maximize restoration of habitat for native species. By integrating lamprey control options...
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This project addressed regional climate change effects on aquatic food webs in the Great Lakes. We sought insights by examining Lake Erie as a representative system with a high level of anthropogenic impacts, strong nutrient gradients, seasonal hypoxia, and spatial overlap of cold- and cool-water fish guilds. In Lake Erie and in large embayments throughout the Great Lakes basin, this situation is a concern for fishery managers, as climate change may exacerbate hypoxia and reduce habitat volume for some species. We examined fish community composition, fine-scale distribution, prey availability, diets, and biochemical tracers for dominant fishes from study areas with medium-high nutrient levels (mesotrophic, Fairport...
Categories: Data, Project; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2012, Academics & scientific researchers, CSC, Climate Change, Conservation NGOs, All tags...


    map background search result map search result map Regional decision support tool for identifying vulnerabilities of riverine habitat and fishes to climate change Predicting climate change effects on riverine aquatic insects in the Upper Midwest Re-establishing ecological connectivity between the Great Lakes and their tributaries: Prioritization in a complex system Collaborative Restoration of Aquatic Resources in the South Central Lake Superior Basin Integrating lampricide options into a decision support tool for barrier management in Great Lakes tributaries Field Assessments of Great Lakes Barriers Comparison of Decision Making Techniques for Selection of River Connectivity Projects in the Michigan Fruitbelt Optimization at the infrastructure-connectivity nexus: boosting cost-efficiency of restoration using dam condition data for Lake Michigan Sustaining the FishWerks webtool: planning for long-term access and  usability to support decisions on connectivity restoration Understanding How Climate Change will Impact Aquatic Food Webs in the Great Lakes Comparison of Decision Making Techniques for Selection of River Connectivity Projects in the Michigan Fruitbelt Understanding How Climate Change will Impact Aquatic Food Webs in the Great Lakes Optimization at the infrastructure-connectivity nexus: boosting cost-efficiency of restoration using dam condition data for Lake Michigan Collaborative Restoration of Aquatic Resources in the South Central Lake Superior Basin Regional decision support tool for identifying vulnerabilities of riverine habitat and fishes to climate change Predicting climate change effects on riverine aquatic insects in the Upper Midwest Re-establishing ecological connectivity between the Great Lakes and their tributaries: Prioritization in a complex system Integrating lampricide options into a decision support tool for barrier management in Great Lakes tributaries Field Assessments of Great Lakes Barriers Sustaining the FishWerks webtool: planning for long-term access and  usability to support decisions on connectivity restoration