Field measurements of coarse woody debris.
Example of shoreline development with lawns extending to shoreline.
Example of couarse woody debris
Illustration to show how samples were laid out at a site.
Effect of Lakeshore Development on Riparian Forest and Littoral Coarse Wood.
Contacts
Keywords
shoreline development, cross boundary transfer, land use, land–water interaction, littoral habitat, near-shore ecology, residential development, subsidies, coarse woody habitat, large woody debris, coarse woody debris
Project Summary
This interdisciplinary project investigated how increases in residential development around lakes in northern Wisconsin affect both riparian forests and aquatic communities. The main focus of this study was the importance of cross boundary subsidies in understanding the impact of residential development on ecosystems. This work contributes to the Biocomplexity:riparian, land, people and lakes project. My collaborators studied many components of the interaction between humans, land and water, including the responses of fish, aquatic macrophytes, dragonflies and anglers to increased development and lakeshore modification. My work focuses on understanding variability in the abundance of submerged logs - an obvious link between terrestrial and aquatic systems and an important habitat for fish and other organisms - at site, lake and landscape scales.
Key Findings
- Among all lakes and among a subset of low-development lakes, the best predictor of the density of littoral coarse wood was the density of riparian coarse wood.
- At the within-lake (site) level, two alternative models explain variability in coarse wood abundance: as a function of exposure to wind and amount of riparian coarse wood or as a function of exposure to wind and land-use intensity.
- Both among and within lakes, areas more modified by humans had a lower density of littoral coarse wood. Conversely, areas with little (current) human impact were tremendously variable; some sites and lakes had abundant wood and others had virtually none.
- Contrary to previous studies, there was no relationship between living trees and coarse wood density, suggesting that riparian and littoral coarse wood densities may be strongly influenced by past disturbance, both human and natural.
- The concentration of residential development at the boundary between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems appears to reduce the flow of coarse wood from forests to lakes. Loss of this resource may have negative consequences for lake biota and the aquatic food web.
Selected Publications
(See http://biocomplexity.limnology.wisc.edu/publications.htm for all project publications)
Turner, M.G. (2003) Modeling for synthesis and integration: forests, people, and riparian coarse woody debris. Models in Ecosystem Science. (eds. C.D. Canham, J.J. Cole, and W.K. Lauenroth), pp. 83-110. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press
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.
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(7): 321-330.
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.