Land-water interactions in North Temperate Landscapes

Contacts

Monica Turner, Ishi Buffam

Keywords

riparian, wetlands, watershed, shoreline development, terrestrial-aquatic interactions, long-term ecological research (LTER), eutrophication, carbon cycling, land-use change

Research Overview

Lakes and rivers are important features of the landscape of northern and southern Wisconsin. In collaboration with faculty and students at the Center for Limnology, our lab has focused on the landscape setting surrounding fresh water ecosystems and on the interactions between the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. In addition, our research contributes to understanding linked social-ecological systems. We currently are involved in two ongoing projects:

• Comparative Study of a Suite of Lakes in Wisconsin (North Temperate Lakes LTER site)
• Hydrologic and biogeochemical fluxes in regional land-water mosaics

Comparative Study of a Suite of Lakes in Wisconsin (North Temperate Lakes LTER site)

The North Temperate Lakes Long-Term Ecological Research (NTL-LTER) program seeks to understand the long-term ecology of lakes and their interactions with a range of important landscape, atmospheric, and human processes.  Freshwater lakes are a nexus of ecological, economic and social processes on many landscapes throughout the world.   Small, inland lakes are particularly prominent throughout the Upper Great Lakes region of North America.  Thousands of inland lakes play a central role in regional hydrologic and biogeochemical cycles, in biological processes influencing the area's diversity of aquatic and terrestrial life, and in a wide range of human activities. Over the past two centuries, deforestation, fire suppression, agriculture, industrialization, and urbanization have transformed landscapes within the region and fundamentally altered the interactions between lakes and their surroundings.  For the next century and beyond, the quality of life and the economies of the region will depend upon the quality of the lakes. The overarching question of NTL-LTER is:  How do biophysical setting, climate, and changing land use and cover interact to shape lake dynamics and organization in the past, present and future? Most recently, our lab has been involved in research focused on understanding the changes in land use and land cover in the riparian zones surrounding lakes of the Northern Highlands Lake District (NHLD) in the forested landscape of Vilas County, as well as the Yahara chain of lakes in the agricultural-urban landscape surrounding Madison. 

Funding source:

National Science Foundation

Selected publications:

Carpenter, S.R., B.J. Benson, R. Biggs, J.W. Chipman, J.A. Foley, S.A. Golding, R.B. Hammer, P.C. Hanson, P.T.J. Johnson, A.M. Kamarainen, T.K. Kratz, R.C. Lathrop, K.D. McMahon, B. Provencher, J.A. Rusak, C.T. Solomon, E.H. Stanley, M. G. Turner, M.J. Vander Zanden, C.-H. Wu and H. Yuan.  2007. Understanding regional change:  comparison of two lake districts.  BioScience 57:323-335.

Gergel, S. E., M. G. Turner, and T. K. Kratz.  1999.  Scale-dependent landscape effects on north temperate lakes and rivers.  Ecological Applications 9:1377-1390.

Henning, B. M. and A. J. Remsburg. Effects of lakeshore vegetation structure on avian and amphibian abundance in northern Wisconsin. American Midland Naturalist (In press).

Marburg, A. E., S. B. Bassak, T. K. Kratz and M. G. Turner. The demography of coarse wood in north-temperate lakes.  Freshwater Biology (In review).

Marburg, A. E., M. G. Turner and T. K. Kratz.  2006. Natural and anthropogenic variation in coarse wood among and within lakes. Journal of Ecology 94:558-568.

Remsburg, A. J. and M. G. Turner. Aquatic and terrestrial drivers of dragonfly (order Odonata) assemblages within and among north-temperate lakes. Journal of the North American Benthological Society (In press).

Riera, J., P. R. Voss, S. R. Carpenter, T. K. Kratz, T. M. Lillesand, J. A. Schnaiberg, M. G. Turner, and M. W. Wegener.  2001.  Nature, society and history in two contrasting landscapes in Wisconsin, USA:  interactions between lakes and humans during the 20th century. Land Use Policy 18:41-51.

Roth, B. M., I. C. Kaplan, G. G. Sass, P. T. Johnson, A. E. Marburg, A. C. Yannarell, T. D. Havlicek, T. V. Willis, M. G. Turner and S. R. Carpenter.  2007. Linking terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems: the role of coarse wood in lake food webs. Ecological Modelling 203:439-452.

Sass, G. G., J. F. Kitchell, S. R. Carpenter, T. R. Hrabik, A. E. Marburg, and M. G. Turner. 2006. Fish community and food web responses to a whole-lake removal of coarse woody habitat.  Fisheries 31:321-330.

Schnaiberg, J., J. Riera, M. G. Turner and P. R.Voss.  2002.  Explaining human settlement patterns in a recreational lake district: Vilas County, Wisconsin, USA. Environmental Management 30:24-34.

Turner, M. G., S. Collins, A. Lugo, J. Magnuson, S. Rupp and F. Swanson.  2003. Long-term ecological research on disturbance and ecological response. BioScience 53:46-56.

Turner, M. G. and S.  R.  Carpenter.  2005. Challenges for riparian science.  Page 16 In:  Naiman, R.J., H. Decamps, and M.C. McClain.  Riparia. Academic Press, San Diego.

Hydrologic and biogeochemical fluxes in regional land-water mosaics

Our overarching goal is to understand carbon and nutrient cycles for a landscape on which terrestrial and freshwater systems are intimately connected in multiple and reciprocal ways. In the Northern Highlands region of Wisconsin, we are studying a spatially complex landscape in which water features make up almost half of the land area, with wetlands (27% of land surface) and lakes (13%) both prevalent throughout the region, interspersed in upland forests. We hypothesize that reciprocal interactions of terrestrial vegetation and lakes, through flows of water, organic carbon, and nutrients, are more complex than previously thought. Improved understanding of these interactions demands a combination of terrestrial and aquatic expertise, in an appropriately integrated research plan.

Terrestrial ecologists have made great strides in understanding the geophysical template, climate, disturbance regimes, and vegetation dynamics that control groundwater, surface water, carbon and nutrient fluxes in the Northern Highlands and other landscapes. Despite these advances, there are considerable gaps in understanding the magnitude and spatial patterns of biogeochemical fluxes. For example, terrestrial ecologists have found important imbalances in the carbon cycle. These gaps may be closed by studies that consider the complete landscape – that is, the integrated behavior of terrestrial upland vegetation, wetlands and surface waters. The goal of our project is to understand how the extent of surface water and wetlands affects ecosystem production, respiration, and spatial flow of organic carbon on complex, heterogeneous landscapes. The approach centers on simulation modeling of hydrology and biogeochemistry, with ground-truthing and calibration data provided by field measurements. We focus on the Northern Highland Lake District (NHLD) of northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan, a complex landscape with over 7500 lakes and diverse forested and wetland ecosystems. Our research team has developed a new integrated spatial simulation model for hydrology and carbon cycling of the entire NHLD (Cardille et al. 2007), and early results are summarized here. Ongoing work on the project includes the testing of climate scenarios using the simulation model, as well as the development of a full regional carbon budget for this lake-rich landscape.

Funding source:

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Selected publications:

Cardille, J. A., Coe, M. T., and J. A. Vano. 2004. Impacts of climate variation and catchment area on water balance and lake hydrologic type in groundwater-dominated systems: a generic lake model. Earth Interactions 8(13): 1-24.

Cardille, J. A., S. R. Carpenter, M. T. Coe, J. A. Foley, P. C. Hanson, M. G. Turner, and J. A. Vano. 2007. Carbon and water cycling in lake-rich landscapes: Landscape connections, lake hydrology, and biogeochemistry. J. Geophys. Res.-Biogeosciences 112, doi:10.1029/2006JG000200.

Hanson, P.C., S.R. Carpenter, J.A. Cardille, M.T. Coe, and L.A. Winslow. 2007. Small lakes dominate a random sample of regional lake characteristics. Freshwater Biology. 52: 814-822.

Turner, M. G. and J. A. Cardille. 2007. Spatial heterogeneity and ecosystem processes. Pages 62-77 in: J. Wu and R. J. Hobbs, editors. Key topics in landscape ecology. Cambridge University Press.

Van de Bogert, M.C., S.R. Carpenter, J.J. Cole and M.L. Pace. 2007. Assessing pelagic and benthic metabolism using free water measurements.  Limnology and Oceanography Methods 5: 145-155.

Vano, J.A., Foley, J.A., Kucharik, C.J., and M.T. Coe. 2006. Evaluating the seasonal and interannual variations in water balance in northern Wisconsin, USA, using a land surface model.  J. Geophys. Res., 111, G02025, doi:10.1029/2005JG000112.

Vano, J.A., Foley J.A., Kucharik C.J., and M.T. Coe. 2008. Controls of climatic variability and land cover on land surface hydrology of northern Wisconsin, USA. Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences, 113, doi:10.1029/2007G000681.