Leveraging a Landscape-Level Monitoring and Assessment Program for Developing Resilient Shorelines throughout the Laurentian Great Lakes.

Traditionally, ecosystem monitoring, conservation, and restoration have been conducted in a piecemeal manner at the local scale without regional landscape context. However, scientifically driven conservation and restoration decisions benefit greatly when they are based on regionally determined benchmarks and goals. Unfortunately, required data sets rarely exist for regionally important ecosystems.

Estimating the effects of detection heterogeneity and overdispersion on trends estimated from avian point counts.

Point counts are a common method for sampling avian distribution and abundance. Although methods for estimating detection probabilities are available, many analyses use raw counts and do not correct for detectability. We use a removal model of detection within an N-mixture approach to estimate abundance trends corrected for imperfect detection.

COMPARISON OF SIMPLE AND MULTIMETRIC DIATOM-BASED INDICES FOR GREAT LAKES COASTLINE DISTURBANCE(1).

Because diatom communities are subject to the prevailing water quality in the Great Lakes coastal environment, diatom-based indices can be used to support coastal-monitoring programs and paleoecological studies. Diatom samples were collected from Great Lakes coastal wetlands, embayments, and high-energy sites (155 sites), and assemblages were characterized to the species level. We defined 42 metrics on the basis of autecological and functional properties of species assemblages, including species diversity, motile species, planktonic species, proportion dominant taxon, taxonomic metrics (e.

Human influences on water quality in Great Lakes coastal wetlands.

A better understanding of relationships between human activities and water chemistry is needed to identify and manage sources of anthropogenic stress in Great Lakes coastal wetlands. The objective of the study described in this article was to characterize relationships between water chemistry and multiple classes of human activity (agriculture, population and development, point source pollution, and atmospheric deposition). We also evaluated the influence of geomorphology and biogeographic factors on stressor-water quality relationships.

Integrated measures of anthropogenic stress in the U.S. Great lakes basin.

Integrated, quantitative expressions of anthropogenic stress over large geographic regions can be valuable tools in environmental research and management. Despite the fundamental appeal of a regional approach, development of regional stress measures remains one of the most important current challenges in environmental science. Using publicly available, pre-existing spatial datasets, we developed a geographic information system database of 86 variables related to five classes of anthropogenic stress in the U.

Environmentally stratified sampling design for the development of Great Lakes environmental indicators.

Understanding the relationship between human disturbance and ecological response is essential to the process of indicator development. For large-scale observational studies, sites should be selected across gradients of anthropogenic stress, but such gradients are often unknown for apopulation of sites prior to site selection. Stress data available from public sources can be used in a geographic information system (GIS) to partially characterize environmental conditions for large geographic areas without visiting the sites.