Publications

Unlike most national parks, main access to Voyageurs National Park is by boat. This remote system of interconnected waterways along the USA-Canada border was an important transportation route for thousands of years of American Indian occupation, leading up to and including the trade route of the voyageurs, or French-Canadian fur traders from around 1680 to 1870. The Ojibwe people collaborated with

Land cover is an important determinant of aquatic habitat and is projected to shift with climate changes, yet climate-driven land cover changes are rarely factored into climate assessments. To quantify impacts and uncertainty of coupled climate and land cover change on warm-water fish species’ distributions, we used an ensemble model approach to project distributions of 14 species. For each specie

Telemetry data for 59 Northern Leopard Frogs (Lithobates pipiens) breeding in ponds in Houston and Winona Counties, MN; 2001-2002. Agricultural intensification is causing declines in many wildlife species, including Northern Leopard Frogs (Lithobates pipiens). Specific information about frog movements, habitat selection, and sources of mortality can be used to inform conservation-focused land mana

The environmental fate, persistence, and non-target animal impacts of traditional molluscicides for zebra, Dreissena polymorpha, and quagga, D. bugensis, mussel control led to the development of the biomolluscicide Zequanox. Although previous research has demonstrated the specificity of Zequanox, one study indicated sensitivity of salmonids and lake sturgeon, Acipenser fulvescens, following non-la

Recent interest in the potential effects of climate change has prompted studies of air temperature and precipitation associations with water temperatures in rivers and streams. We examined associations between summer surface water temperatures and both air temperature and discharge for 5 reaches of the Upper Mississippi River during 1994–2011. Water–air temperature associations at a given reach ap

Fatty acid and stable isotope signatures allow researchers to better understand food webs, food sources, and trophic relationships. Research in marine and lentic systems has indicated that the variance of these biomarkers can exhibit substantial differences across spatial and temporal scales, but this type of analysis has not been completed for large river systems. Our objectives were to evaluate

The impacts of dams and levees on the long-term (>130 years) discharge record was assessed along a ~1200 km segment of the Mississippi River between St. Louis, Missouri, and Vicksburg, Mississippi. To aid in our evaluation of dam impacts, we used data from the U.S. National Inventory of Dams to calculate the rate of reservoir expansion at five long-term hydrologic monitoring stations along the stu

Recent evidence suggests wild rice (Zizania palustris), an important resource for migrating waterfowl, is declining in parts of central North America, providing motivation to rigorously quantify the relationship between waterfowl and wild rice. A hierarchical mixed-effects model was applied to data on waterfowl abundance for 16 species, wild rice stem density, and two measures of water depth (true

Specific conductance (SC), soil volumetric water content (VWC), and discharge were monitored on a subsurface agricultural drain for a 2-yr period (2007–2008) to differentiate preferential flow paths from matrix flow paths. A major observation from the 2-yr period was the fast SC decrease after relatively small rainfall events, often <5 mm. A total of 25 paired rainfall–SC events were classified, w

This study tested a focused strategy for reducing phosphorus (P) and sediment loads in agricultural streams. The strategy involved selecting small watersheds identified as likely to respond relatively quickly, and then focusing conservation practices on high-contributing fields within those watersheds. Two 5,000 ha (12,360 ac) watersheds in the Driftless Area of south central Wisconsin, previously

Three permeable pavement surfaces - asphalt (PA), concrete (PC), and interlocking pavers (PIP) - were evaluated side-by-side to measure changes to the infiltrative capacity and water quality of stormwater runoff originating from a conventional asphalt parking lot in Madison, Wisconsin. During the 24-month monitoring period (2014-16), all three permeable pavements resulted in statistically signific

Streamflow and nutrient concentration data needed to compute nitrogen and phosphorus loads were compiled from Federal, State, Provincial, and local agency databases and also from selected university databases. The nitrogen and phosphorus loads are necessary inputs to Spatially Referenced Regressions on Watershed Attributes (SPARROW) models. SPARROW models are a way to estimate the distribution, so