THE LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY OF LAKE ECOSYSTEMS

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: HATCH
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 0176820
• Project Start Date: Oct 1, 2012
• Project End Date: Sep 30, 2017
• Program Code: [(N/A)]- (N/A)

Recipient Organization
MICHIGAN STATE UNIV
(N/A)
EAST LANSING,MI 48824

Performing Department
Fisheries & Wildlife

Non Technical Summary
The goal of this research is to generate the knowledge and tools to improve our understanding and management of the many highly valued freshwater resources of Michigan and the United States. Two of the biggest threats to freshwaters are land use and climate change, both of which have already been shown to be tightly linked to nutrients in lakes, the focus of this research. However, because both climate and land use can be tightly linked together, you cannot predict the effects of one without considering the other. For example, as climate changes, people could make different decisions about land use (such as whether to farm a certain area or not if climate changes a lot). So, to predict likely outcomes from a changing climate, you need to understand how both climate and land use influence lakes. My collaborators and I have developed a framework to think about how to study and ultimately predict how lake nutrients will change in response to both climate and land use, which we call landscape limnology. Landscape limnology describes the full suite of variables that influences lakes and it explains how all the different factors fit together, such as regional climate and watershed land use near a lake. The first specific objectives of this research is to determine the best way to measure variables like land use around a lake. For example, does the land use immediately near the lake shoreline have a greater impact on lake nutrients than land use farther from the lake, but in the watershed Surprisingly, we do not really know the answer to this simple question. The second specific objective is to incorporate the effects of climate and land use by studying how lakes change across 17 states, with different land use, but also across time from about 30 years ago to present. We will develop models that help to explain how lake nutrients change in response to both land use and climate. Finally, we will develop models that can be specifically incorporated into management problems such as determining what the natural nutrient levels in lakes are to help determine what standards should be used to determine when lakes have crossed a threshold and need to be rehabilitated. This work will have important outputs including: mentoring of students who may go onto work in lake management agencies, holding of special sessions at national conferences to convene discussions of how such work should be conducted and incorporated into management problems, the creation of a large integrated database of lake nutrients for 17 states that can be used by researchers and managers into the future to address other problems related to lake nutrients, or to use as a foundation for future databases. This database will be shared with the public, researchers, and policy-makers and will be an invaluable resource for the continuation of such research efforts.

Animal Health Component

(N/A)

Research Effort Categories

Basic

(N/A)

Applied

(N/A)

Developmental

(N/A)

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
112	0210	1070	25%
112	0210	2060	25%
112	0320	1070	25%
112	0320	2060	25%

Knowledge Area
112 - Watershed Protection and Management;

Subject Of Investigation
0320 - Watersheds; 0210 - Water resources;

Field Of Science
1070 - Ecology; 2060 - Geography;

Keywords

land use change

climate change

freshwater ecology

landscape ecology

landscape limnology

lake management

statistical modeling

geographic information science

spatial scale

watershed land use

lake nutrients

lakes

Goals / Objectives
Goals and objectives 1. Determine the most important spatial extents for developing models that predict lake nutrients from landscape features. We will develop statistical models based on landscape limnology to determine the relative importance of the landscape variables at different scales in predicting lake nutrients, and whether there are interactions across the scales. 2. Determine the effects of both climate and land use/change on lake nutrients. We will identify the most important spatial and temporal scale for influencing nutrients across space (i.e., in different regions) and through time, and examine the complex interactions between these two stressors. 3. Integration of landscape ecology, management and policy: Integrate the above research to develop a landscape-based ecosystem management framework that integrates landscape ecology with natural resource management and policy. Expected outputs: 1. Activities - I will mentor graduate and undergraduate students in conducting such broad-scale research on freshwater ecosystems. 2. Events - My collaborators and I will hold special-sessions for at least 2 conferences to help to disseminate the knowledge gained from this research to both ecologists as well as managers and policymakers focusing on freshwater resources. 3. Products - My collaborators and I will create an unprecedented database containing lake nutrients and associated geophysical information including climate, land use, and landscape setting from 17 US states. This database will be shared with the public and other researchers at the end of the project to facilitate future research and education. We will also create numerous models that describe the response of lakes to both land use and climate change. We will also create numerous technical publications describing our research approach, results and management/policy implications. 4. Dissemination - In addition to the above activities that involve dissemination, we will interact with state agencies to translate our research results into management and policy decisions where applicable.

Project Methods
In this research, we will compile datasets for lakes that have already been collected for the last 3 decades. We will put all of the data into a single database for which we will also add information about the land use, climate, geology and other factors around each lake. We will use this integrated database to develop statistical models that help us predict lake nutrients from the geographic information around a lake and to determine how much of the land is contributing most of the nutrients to lakes. Because we expect the answers to these types of questions differ across the country, we will determine which regions of the country have lakes with similar responses to land use. Then, for the second objective, we will incorporate a climate component to examine how climate and land use together influence lake nutrients and how they may interact with each other to determine lake nutrients. Again, we expect strong regional differences in how lakes respond to climate and land use, so will analyze the database to identify those regional differences. Using the above results, we will further develop a landscape-based ecosystem management framework that we have developed that integrates landscape ecology with natural resource management and policy. This framework will be based on the statistical models to predict possible effects of land use and climate change into the future; and the consideration of lake rehabilitation targets (through our work with MI-DEQ in setting nutrient standards). We hope to produce innovative tools for cost-effective ecosystem rehabilitation prioritization through integration of all of these research activities into a management framework. We will evaluate the technical soundness of our models through the publication review process as we intend to publish all of our analyses. We will evaluate the usefulness of our approach for management and policy by whether the tools and models that we develop will be used in a management context.

Progress 10/01/12 to 09/30/17

Outputs
Target Audience:I target researchers studying water quality of freshwaters;groups that sample water quality, including citizen volunteers, state biologists, and university researchers;and finally, managers and policymakers who would use my research and data to apply it to management and policy efforts. Specifically, I requested data from citizen volunteer programs, state agencies, and university researchers who sample water quality in lakes. For individuals that provided me data, I further engaged them by inviting them to be a co-author on a 'data publication' that makes the final database publicly accessible. In this effort, we discussed ways that data could be better managed and curated. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? I trained a female PhD student who has defended her dissertation during this project. She is currently a post-doctoral researcher working at the USEPA. This student gained much experience from this project including several important leadership activities: She led the effort to author metadata for our large database so that she learned skills needed to make data publicly accessible. She led the effort to quantify freshwater connectivity metrics for lakes, streams, and wetlands and became an expert on the topic. She has led 3 collaborative manuscript efforts. In addition, she presented oral papers at many national conferences, practicing her communication skills. I trained two female post-doctoral researchers on this project. Both of them have been given numerous leadership opportunities including leading data-analysis efforts on the project as well as leading the quality-control effort of one of the database modules for the larger project. Each has presented at national conferences numerous times and have led manuscript efforts, some of which are still ongoing. I have co-authored with my students and post-doctoral researchers, and often with them as lead-authors. I worked with an undergraduate student who has a background in both ecology and computer science to train her in data management and metadata preparation for large databases. She was given an opportunity to be a co-author on a manuscript based on this effort. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? I have published a total of 28 articles, and, many of them are open-access such that all scholars and the public have access to the published articles. In addition, for almost all of them, my co-authors and I have made the underlying data that support the articles available in a data repository. I have been invited to give 17 presentations in numerous venues, including professional scholarly societies, university departments, and student-organizations. During every year of this project, my students and I have presented results of this work at national and international conferences, and given numerous invited presentations in which I not only discuss the scientific outcomes of this research, but also the challenges of conducting data-intensive research for studying water quality problems. I gave 2 plenary presentations during the reporting period at international conferences based on this work. (1) The Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting (Bridging genes to ecosystems: Aquatic science at a time of rapid change) in Portland, OR in 2014 in which I presented the results of this research to an audience of almost 2,000 freshwater scientists. (2) The North American Lake Management Society Annual Symposium in Madison, WI in 2012 in which I present the result of this research to an audience of almost 1,000 scientists, managers, policymakers and consultants. I was co-editor on a special issue of a journal in my field (Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment) that was intended to introduce an emerging field (macrosystems ecology, which is related to landscape limnology and my project) that my collaborators and I are helping to lead. I co-wrote the introductory editorial as well. I have given 4 invited guest lectures in graduate courses and 1 in an undergraduate course describing the issues and strategies for conducting team-based, data-intensive and open research that this project represents reaching a total of ~140 graduate students in programs ranging from Environmental Science Policy Program (MSU), Louisiana State University's Marine Science program, and Fisheries and Wildlife Department (MSU). I was interviewed for a podcast about Big Data and Good Science, October 13, 2016. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Impacts The goal of this research was to generate the knowledge and tools to improve our understanding and management of the many highly valued freshwater resources of Michigan and the United States. Understanding the factors that affect lake water quality and the ecological services provided by lakes is an urgent global environmental issue. Predicting how lake water quality will respond to global change not only requires water quality data, but also information about the environmental conditions surrounding individual lakes in many regions. However, lake water quality is usually sampled within a single region or area, often for limited time periods; therefore, to study water quality across regions, continents, and the globe, scientists must compile many lake water quality and geographic datasets into an integrated database. This research project created such a database for 17 US states called LAGOS-NE, which has been made available in a data repository that is open to the public, researchers, and policymakers. This database has over a million records of water quality in over 10,000 lakes and several million measures of environmental conditions of all 50,000 lakes in these states. Such an unprecedented database will be an invaluable resource for scientists, managers, and policymakers to build new knowledge to better manage and set policy for water quality in the US. We have also written articles about how to build other databases like this for other natural resource problems beyond water quality, which will be valuable for future efforts to build similarly useful databases on other natural resources of the US. We studied two of the biggest threats to water quality in freshwaters--land use and climate change. However, because both climate and land use can be tightly linked together, you cannot predict the effects of one without considering the other. We developed models to study how lake water quality will change in response to climate and land use. We found that although both climate and land use has changed in the last 30 years, the average water quality of most lakes has mostly stayed the same. Our results show that water quality is linked to major factors like regional land use and average climate, but that water quality in any given year is also related to local activities such as specific management actions, local weather, and other factors. Accomplishments My collaborators and I have built and shared a large integrated database of lake water quality called LAGOS-NE the "LAke multi-scaled GeOSpatial and temporal database". This database includes compilations of water quality measurements taken from state, tribal, and federal agencies; university researchers; and citizen volunteers. The database also includes a wide range of environmental characteristics of lakes obtained from digital maps, and also computer code and software for building the database and analyzing the data. We make all of these data and tools available in online repositories. These resources are intended to provide resources to study water quality at broad scales and to provide information for lake managers and policymakers who make decisions about lake water quality. To provide more information for future users of this database, we have created a website (www.lagoslakes.org). Our vision was to create the infrastructure of people, data, and computer tools for studying water quality and other important freshwater research questions at broad scales for research, management, policy, education, and outreach. Change in condition for information resources The second important outcome is a change in condition for the information resources for an important natural resource, inland freshwaters. We have compiled one of the first water quality databases that cross state lines to study water quality in this very lake-rich area of the US. Such a database can be used for management, assessment, and policy and will be an invaluable resource for sound science-based policies for protecting freshwater resources. We have also written articles about how to build such a database for other natural resource questions using agency datasets such as this. Thus, the impact of our work will be felt for other natural resource problems beyond lake water quality. Change in knowledge as a result of the 3 objectives Objective 1. We examined the best way to measure variables like land use around a lake. For example, does the land use immediately near the lake shoreline have a greater impact on lake nutrients than land use farther from the lake, but in the watershed? Surprisingly, we did not really know the answer to this simple question. Our research showed that there is not a simple answer to this question. In some lakes, it is the land that can be quite far from the lake shoreline that matters, but in other lakes, it is mostly the land near the lake shoreline. The answer to this simple question is very important for managers and policymakers to be able to better predict the effects of different land use on water quality and so could be used for planning purposes. Objective 2. Our research results provided a significant change in knowledge about broad-scale patterns of water quality in the lake-rich area of the upper Midwest and Northeastern US states. For example, we found that lake nutrients, which are strongly related to algal growth and water clarity in lakes, are most related to land use and lake depth, which researchers have identified previously. However, we found several important new results that had not been shown previously. For example, we showed that the relationships between land use and lake water quality differ in important ways in different regions. This means that you cannot apply the same water quality models that are developed in one region to another. Nevertheless, we were able to identify some regions that were similar enough such that the same models could be used. This result will be especially valuable to management and policy efforts to know which regions should be managed differently. In another analysis, we examined the effects of climate and land use by studying how lake water quality is different across 17 states, with different land use, but also across time from about 30 years ago to present. We showed that land use change has had an overwhelming effect on lake water quality. We also found that although both climate and land use has changed in the last 30 years, the average water quality of most lakes has mostly stayed the same. We also show that lakes in the same region can exhibit very different changes in water quality through time. Our results show that water quality is linked to major factors like regional land use, but also local activities such as specific management actions, local weather, and other factors that were difficult to measure for many lakes and that can differ greatly from lake to lake. Our results point to other factors may need to be considered to better predict water quality in the future such as specific agricultural or forestry practices, interactions with weather, and other complex interactions that have not been tested yet. ?Objective 3. A third important objective of this work was to integrate landscape ecology, management, and policy. This objective was met by building the database itself and testing a range of different types of models that predict water quality in large numbers of lakes. These efforts have laid the groundwork for future scientists to more easily engage with policymakers by making the database and models available.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Wagner, T., C.E. Fergus, C.A. Stow, K.S. Cheruvelil, and P.A. Soranno. 2016. The statistical power to detect cross-scale interactions at macroscales. Ecosphere 7(7):e01417. 10.1002/ecs2.1417
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Elliott, K.C., K.S. Cheruvelil, G.M. Montgomery, and Soranno, P.A.. 2016. Conceptions of good science in our data-rich world. BioScience 66(10) 1-10. 10.1093/biosci/biw115
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Fergus, C.E., A.O. Finley, P.A. Soranno, T. Wagner. 2016. Spatial variation in nutrient and water color effects on lake chlorophyll at macroscales. PloS ONE. 11(10): e0164592. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0164592
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Elliott, K.C., I.S. Settles, G.M. Montgomery, S.T. Brassel, K.S. Cheruvelil, and P.A. Soranno. 2017. Honorary authorship practices in environmental science teams: structural and cultural causes and solutions. Accountability in Research: Policies and quality assurance 24(2):80-98.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Cheruvelil, K.S., S. Yuan, K.E. Webster, P.-N. Tan, J.-F. Lapierre, S.M. Collins, C.E. Fergus, C.E. Scott, E.N. Henry, P.A. Soranno, C.T. Filstrup, T. Wagner. 2017. Creating multi-themed ecological regions for macrosystems ecology: Testing a flexible, repeatable, and accessible clustering method. Ecology and Evolution 7: 30463058. doi: 10.1002/ece3.2884
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Yuan, S., P.-N. Tan, K.S. Cheruvelil, C.E. Fergus, N.K. Skaff, and P.A. Soranno. 2017. Hash-based feature learning for incomplete continuous-valued data. Proceedings of the 2017 SIAM International Conference on Data Mining. Houston, Texas. April 27-29, 2017.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Lapierre, J.-F., D. Seekell, C.T. Filstrup, S.M. Collins, C.E. Fergus, P.A. Soranno, K.S. Cheruvelil. 2017. Continental-scale variation in controls of summer CO2 in United States lakes. Journal of Geophysical Research  Biogeosciences 122(4):875-885. doi: 10.1002/2016JG003525
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Collins, S.M., S.K. Oliver, J.-F. Lapierre, E.H. Stanley, J. Jones, T. Wagner, P.A. Soranno. 2017. Lake nutrient stoichiometry is less predictable than nutrient concentrations at regional and sub-continental scales. Ecological Applications. doi: 10.1002/eap.1545
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Oliver, S.K., S.M. Collins, P.A. Soranno, T. Wagner, E.H. Stanley, J. Jones, C. Stow, N. Lottig. 2017. Unexpected stasis in a changing world: Lake nutrient and chlorophyll trends since 1990. Global Change Biology. doi: 10.1111/gcb.13810
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Fergus, C.E., J.-F. Lapierre, S.K. Oliver, N. Skaff, K.S. Cheruvelil, P.A. Soranno, K.E. Webster, C. Scott. 2017. The freshwater landscape: Lake, wetland, and stream abundance and connectivity at macroscales. Ecosphere. doi: 10.1002/ecs2.1911.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2017 Citation: Lottig, N., P.-N. Tan, T. Wagner, K.S. Cheruvelil, P.A. Soranno, E. Stanley, C. Scott, C. Stow, S. Yuan. In press. Macroscale patterns of synchrony identify complex relationships among spatial and temporal ecosystem drivers. Ecosphere.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Resnik, D.B., K.C. Elliott, P.A. Soranno, and E.M. Smith. 2017. Data-intensive science and research integrity. Accountability in Research. 24(6):344-358. doi: 10.1080/08989621.2017.1327813
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2017 Citation: Soranno, P.A., L.C. Bacon, M. Beauchene, K.E. Bednar, E.G. Bissell, C.K. Boudreau, M.G. Boyer, M.T. Bremigan, S.R. Carpenter, J.W. Carr, K.S. Cheruvelil, S.T. Christel, M. Claucherty, S.M. Collins, J.D. Conroy, J.A. Downing, J. Dukett, C.E. Fergus, C.T. Filstrup, C. Funk, M.J. Gonzalez, L.T. Green, C. Gries, J.D. Halfman, S.K. Hamilton, P.C. Hanson, E.N. Henry, E.M. Herron, C. Hockings, J.R. Jackson, K. Jacobson-Hedin, L.L. Janus, W.W. Jones, J.R. Jones, C.M. Keson, K.B.S. King, S.A. Kishbaugh, J.-F. Lapierre, B. Lathrop, J.A. Latimore, Y. Lee, N.R. Lottig, J.A. Lynch, L.J. Matthews, W.H. McDowell, K.E.B. Moore, B.P. Neff, S.J. Nelson, S.K. Oliver, M.L. Pace, D.C. Pierson, A.C. Poisson, A.I. Pollard, D.M. Post, P.O. Reyes, D.O. Rosenberry, K.M. Roy, L.G. Rudstam, O. Sarnelle, N.J. Schuldt, C.E. Scott, N.K. Skaff, N.J. Smith, N.R. Spinelli, J.J. Stachelek, E.H. Stanley, J.L. Stoddard, S.B. Stopyak, C.A. Stow, J.M. Tallant, P.-N. Tan, A.P. Thorpe, M.J. Vanni, T. Wagner, G. Watkins, K.C. Weathers, K.E. Webster, J.D. White, M.K. Wilmes, S. Yuan. In press. LAGOS-NE: A multi-scaled geospatial and temporal database of lake ecological context and water quality for thousands of U.S. lakes. Gigascience.

Progress 10/01/15 to 09/30/16

Outputs
Target Audience:We continue to target other natural resource and ecological researchers, including students and post-doctoral researchers conducting research at broad landscape scales who are trying to conduct similar research. We continue to share many of our research products, code and data to researchers who have asked as well as making much of our data associated with this project available. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?My PhD student has defended her dissertation and has led a collaborative effort with members of the research team. In addition, my post-doctoral researcher is leading another two collaborative efforts. Both early career researchers are gaining valuable leadership skills. In addition, both researchers attended and presented oral papers at a national conference this past year. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have published 3 peer-reviewed articles; and given 7 presentations to national and international conferences. In addition, we have posted a database for one of the publications in a publicly-accessible data repository. Finally, I have been invited to give 4 presentations to either international conferences, regional conferences, and universities on my research program. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to quality-control the final large database and then begin to start conducting research on this large database. In addition, we will work with the data providers for the limnological datasets to write a 'data paper' that will allow them to get credit for sharing data with us. Also, we will make the entire database publicly available next year for other researchers, policymakers, managers and the public to access and use. Finally, we plan to submit many manuscripts conducting a thorough analysis on the database.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We continue to build the large 17-state water quality and geospatial database (LAGOS) on 50,000 lakes that are greater than 4 ha. During this past year we have been working on the final database for this 17-state area (LAGOS version 1.087). We have completed much of the work for this effort, including loading all of the remaining individual datasets into LAGOS. We are currently working on exporting the data to members of our researcher team to do the quality-control procedures. The database includes over 9,000 lakes with water quality measurements in the 17-state area. We have also conducted research to address our research questions of this project and have submitted articles on the topic that are currently under review or undergoing revision. In addition, we have written a proposal for new funding to expand our research, which has been funded by the National Science Foundation.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Oliver, S.K., P.A. Soranno, E. Fergus, T. Wagner, L.A. Winslow, C.E. Scott, K.E. Webster, J.A. Downing, and E.H. Stanley. 2016. Prediction of lake depth across a 17-state region in the United States. Inland Waters 6:314-324. doi: 10.5268/IW-6.3.957
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Yuan, S, PN Tan, KS Cheruvelil, S Collins, and PA Soranno. 2015. Constrained spectral clustering for regionalization: Exploring the trade-off between spatial contiguity and landscape homogeneity. Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE International Conference on Data Science and Advanced Analytics. 19-21 October 2015. Pg 1-10. doi:10.1109/DSAA.2015.7344878

Progress 10/01/14 to 09/30/15

Outputs
Target Audience:We have actively targeted other ecological researchers conducting research at broad landscape scales who are trying to integrate widely different datasets. We have done this by publishing most of this work in open-access publications and by providing our computer code, documentation and data in publications or online repositories. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?My post-doctoral researcher has lead multiple projects/papers in which she is leading small research teams to conduct research. My graduate student continues to lead another research team to measure and analyze freshwater connectivity metrics. Both personnel are writing manuscripts related to these leadership efforts. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have published 4 articles, I have given 1 invited seminar at a university, and presented or co-presented five presentations at national and international conferences. For all of these presentations and articles, I have reported on results from this project. Three of the 4 articles have been published open-access so that they are widely available to public and other scientists. In addition, one of our publications has been a detailed description of the methods we have developed in this project to create and maintain integrated, complex water quality/landscape databases. This publication was published open access with all of our associated codes and methods provided to the user community. The paper has already been downloaded a high rate related to other papers of the same age and had a blog-post written about it. In addition, one of our other publications provided the underlying data in an online repository for other scientists to use. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We expect to finish loading the rest of the water quality databases to finish the integrated database. We should have approximately 110 datasets compiled and integrated once this happens. The geospatial database is fully completed and documented for use. We are actively working on approximately 15 manuscripts in the coming year, with likely a few more planned.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We continue to build are large 17-state water quality and geospatial database (LAGOS) on 50,000 lakes that are greater than 4 ha. During this past year, we have created a database that we have started to analyze for water quality relationships to land use, climate, and other landscape features around lakes. The database currently includes over 9,000 lakes in our 17-state study area for which we have water quality data, and 50,000 lakes for which we have geographic information science data, including information on lake watersheds and regions including: land use and cover, geology, climate, atmospheric deposition, hydrology, road and dam density, and freshwater connectivity metrics.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Soranno, P.A., K.S. Cheruvelil, T. Wagner, K.E. Webster, M.T. Bremigan. 2015. Effects of land use on lake nutrients: The importance of scale, hydrologic connectivity, and region. PLoS ONE 10(8): e0135454.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Soranno, P.A., K.S. Cheruvelil, K.C. Elliott, and G.M. Montgomery. 2015. Its good to share: Why environmental scientists ethics are out of date. BioScience 65(1):69-73. doi:10.1093/biosci/biu169
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Soranno, P.A., E.G. Bissell, K.S. Cheruvelil, S.T. Christel, S.M. Collins, C.E. Fergus, C.T. Filstrup, J.F. Lapierre, N.R. Lottig, S.K. Oliver, C.E. Scott, N.J. Smith, S. Stopyak, S. Yuan, M.T. Bremigan, J.A. Downing, C. Gries, E.N. Henry, N.K. Skaff, E.H. Stanley, C.A. Stow, P.-N. Tan, T. Wagner, K.E. Webster. 2015. Building a multi-scaled geospatial temporal ecology database from disparate data sources: Fostering open science and data reuse. GigaScience 4:28 doi:10.1186/s13742-015-0067-4

Progress 10/01/13 to 09/30/14

Outputs
Target Audience: This past year, we have tried to target other ecological researchers who are trying to build large databases, and who are studying ecological research questions at broad spatial scales. Our 5 manuscripts in the special issue that I co-edited and that was published in 2014 had this goal and target. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? My graduate student on the project continues to lead a sub-team on our 20-person project to quantify and calculate freshwater connectivity metrics. She is currently leading a manuscript on the topic with a subset of our project participants. In addition, she presented early results of this effort at a special session at the Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting in May 2014 in Portland, OR focused on broad-scale limnology. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? I was asked to give a plenary presentation to the Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting (Bridging genes to ecosystems: Aquatic science at a time of rapid change) in Portland, OR in May 2014. I presented the results of this research to an audience of almost 2,000 freshwater scientists. In addition, we published In addition, 4 other collaborators that I am working with on this research presented their research at this conference in a special session linked to my plenary talk. We all spoke about this research project and early results. In addition, I was co-editor on a special issue of a journal in my field (Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment) that was intended to introduce an emerging field (macrosystems ecology) that my collaborators and I are working in and helping to lead. In addition, I worked to more broadly disseminate the importance of our research by working with communications staff to issue press releases for the above special issue and other work, and to work on a video that explains the research. I also was interviewed for a local radio station show related to this work. Below are the details for these 5 efforts: 1. Radio interview: Current State, with Mark Bashore, February 13, 2014 http://wkar.org/post/msu-ecologists-steer-adaptation-big-data 2. MSU press release, February 5, 2014. New scientific field looks at the big picture. http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2014/new-scientific-field-looks-at-the-big-picture/ 3. MSU press release, February 5, 2014. Research: it’s more than just the science. http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2014/research-its-more-than-just-the-science/ 4. NSF press release, February 3, 2014. Data-intensive ecology needed to understand what makes the biosphere tick. http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=130218&org=NSF&from=news 5. Video describing works, February 3, 2014. Pioneering a new field: Macrosystems ecology. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPSOwz7c1dI What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? We will continue to build the database by adding more water quality datasets. We have approximately 80 total datasets that we intend to integrate into the database. The geospatial data is now complete and we should not need to load any more of those data. However, we will conduct quality-control of all datasets in the database and edit the database accordingly in the coming years. We also have approximately 10 manuscripts actively being worked on with the first version of our database completed. In addition, an important component of our research is to share the lessons learned from integrating such a database, and to share our exact methods so that others can use the procedures that we have developed for future database integration efforts. Therefore, one of the manuscripts that we are working on is a technical document that includes all of our documentation and methods for database integration.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We continue to build our large 17-state water quality and geospatial database (LAGOS) on 50,000 lakes that are greater than 4 ha. Since last year, we have filtered out water bodies that are not considered to be lakes, and so our total lake population has decreased from 55,000 that we reported last year to 50,000. In addition, we have loaded 21 more water quality datasets, for a totally of 32 datasets that we have integrated into a unified database. Of the total 50,000 lakes in LAGOS, we have acquired water quality data for approximately 8,000 of those lakes. In addition, we have just completed all of the geospatial analyses to incorporate into LAGOS including information on lake watersheds and regions including: land use and cover, geology, climate, atmospheric deposition, hydrology, road and dam density, and freshwater connectivity metrics.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Filstrup, C.T., T. Wagner, P.A. Soranno, E.H. Stanley, C.A. Stow, K.E. Webster, and J.A. Downing. 2014. Regional variability among nonlinear chlorophyll-phosphorus relationships in lakes. Limnology and Oceanography 59(5):1691-1703.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Soranno, P.A., and D.S. Schimel. Macrosystems ecology: Big data, big ecology. 2014. Guest editorial in the special issue on Macrosystems Ecology, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 12(1):3.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Heffernan, J.B., P.A. Soranno�, M.J. Angilletta, L.B. Buckley, D.S. Gruner, T.H. Keitt, J.R. Kellner, J.S. Kominoski, A.V. Rocha, J. Xiao, T.K. Harms, S.J. Goring, L.E. Koenig, W.H. McDowell, H. Powell, A.D. Richardson , C.A. Stow, R. Vargas, K.C. Weathers. 2014. Macrosystems ecology: Understanding ecological pattern and process at continental scales. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 12(1):5-14.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Soranno, P.A., K.S. Cheruvelil, E. Bissell, M. Tate Bremigan, J.A. Downing, C.E. Fergus, C. Filstrup, N.R. Lottig, E.N. Henry, E.H. Stanley, C.A. Stow, P.-N. Tan, T. Wagner, K.E. Webster. 2014. Cross-scale interactions: Quantifying multi-scaled cause-effect relationships in macrosystems. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 12(1):65-73.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Ruegg, J., C. Gries, B. Bond-Lamberty, G.J. Bowen, B.S. Felzer, N.E. McIntyre, P.A. Soranno, K.L. Vanderbilt, K.C. Weathers. 2014. Completing the data life cycle: Using information management in macrosystems ecology research. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 12(1):24-30.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Goring, S., K. Weathers, W.K. Dodds, P.A. Soranno, L. Sweet, K.S. Cheruvelil, J. Kominoski, J. Ruegg, A. Thorn, R. Utz. 2014. Improving the culture of interdisciplinary collaboration in ecology by expanding the measures of success. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 12(1):39-47.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Cheruvelil, K.S., P.A. Soranno, K.C. Weathers, P.C. Hanson, S. Goring, C.T. Filstrup, and E.K. Read. 2014. Creating and maintaining high-performing collaborative research teams: the importance of diversity and interpersonal skills. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 12(1):31-38.

Progress 01/01/13 to 09/30/13

Outputs
Target Audience: I target both researchers working on natural resource management issues as well as managers and policymakers who would use my research as applied to management and policy. My collaborators and I have actively participated in disseminating our research results to other researchers through a single publication published this year ina high impact peer reviewed journal and presentations to scholarly organizations. We are currently using data from natural resource agencies and are in occasional contact with them regarding the data that they have provided to us. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? My graduate student on the project has taken a leadership role in leading a sub-team on the project to determine the landscape metrics to calculate for the integrated database. She has successfully lead this sub-team to identify which metrics to calculate and has written the documentation on the project procedures. This student also played a key role in our annual project meeting in which she lead a discussion of the above topic as well. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? I gave an invited presentation to the Ecological Society of America special symposium related to the topic of our research. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? We plan to continue to build the integrated database and expect it to be completed in the coming year so that we can begin to statistically analyze the large database to address the research questions and our project goals.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We have been actively working to compile the large 17-state database on lake nutrients during the reporting period. We have successfully imported 11 of the main 17 state databases into our integrated database (i.e., LAGOS) and began to check it for errors. In addition, we quantified many of the geospatial features of all 55,000 lakes in the study region. For example, lake watersheds have been calculated for each of the above lakes. I have continued to mentor one graduate student on the project and one undergraduate student.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Cheruvelil, K.S., P.A. Soranno, M.T. Bremigan, and K.E. Webster. 2013. The multi-scaled drivers of ecosystem state: Quantifying the importance of the regional spatial scale. Ecological Applications 23:1603-1618.

Progress 01/01/12 to 12/31/12

Outputs
OUTPUTS: To disseminate our work, my students, collaborators, and I gave 2 invited presentations (to national scientific conferences), and 7 additional presentations to scholarly organizations. In addition, we had 1 article published (and 6 submitted). In addition, I was asked to chair a committee that organized a national meeting by the National Science Foundation for PIs who received funding from a recent award (Macrosystems Biology Program). PARTICIPANTS: Principal investigator, Patricia Soranno. Dr. Soranno oversees the research conducted on this project. She directs the development and maintenance of the landscape-lake database and she has co-authored all publications (to date) for which these are the primary data. Dr. Soranno participates in all aspects of the project including presentations, publications and dissemination to target audiences (see below). Dr. Soranno is currently 1 PhD student who conduct research related to this project. TARGET AUDIENCES: I target both researchers working on natural resource management issues as well as managers and policymakers who would use my research as applied to management and policy. My collaborators and I have actively participated in disseminating our research results to other researchers through publications published this year in high impact peer reviewed journals and presentations to scholarly organizations. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
I was asked to be co-editor of a special issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment in which a group of scientists are helping to define an emerging field of Macrosystems Ecology. I am also serving as co-author on many of the publications, as well as co-lead of the first manuscript in which the field is defined. In addition, I have been asked to revise the tool that Michigan currently uses to define nutrient criteria in lakes that my collaborators and I developed several years ago. We received funds this year to revise the tool in the coming year.

Publications

• Zhang, T., P.A. Soranno, K.S. Cheruvelil, D.B. Kramer, M.T. Bremigan, A. Ligmann-Zielinska. 2012. Evaluating the effects of upstream lakes and wetlands on lake phosphorus concentrations using a spatially-explicit model. Landscape Ecology 27:1015-1030. Doi:10.1007/s10980-012-9762-z

Progress 01/01/11 to 12/31/11

Outputs
OUTPUTS: My students, collaborators, and I gave 3 presentations to scholarly organizations to disseminate our work, I was invited to give 2 presentations on my research, and I published 4 articles. I wrote a report that was submitted to two tribes in Minnesota describing the approach that I developed to set nutrient standards in their lakes, which they are in the process of implementing. One of the invited talks that I was asked to give is to K-12 teachers about implementing research into the K-12 curriculum. One of my masters degree students defended her thesis. I published an article about setting reference conditions in lakes, streams and wetlands that was written with other graduate students who took one of my courses. Finally, a proposal was funded for which I am lead PI that represents a new interdisciplinary collaboration and for which we are in the process of creating a large geospatial database to be of used by managers, policymakers and researchers. PARTICIPANTS: Principal investigator, Patricia Soranno. Dr. Soranno oversees the research conducted on this project. She directs the development and maintenance of the landscape-lake database and she has co-authored all publications (to date) for which these are the primary data. Dr. Soranno participates in all aspects of the project including presentations, publications and dissemination to target audiences (see below). Dr. Soranno is currently 1 PhD student and 1 MS student who conduct research related to this project. TARGET AUDIENCES: I target both researchers working on natural resource management issues as well as managers and policymakers who would use my research as applied to management and policy. My collaborators and I have actively participated in disseminating our research results to other researchers through publications published this year in high impact peer reviewed journals and presentations to scholarly organizations. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
Two management agencies in Europe have cited our 2010 BioScience paper as the conceptual model they will use in efforts at managing their lakes. There was a press release issued by Michigan State University announcing the award of our $2.2 million NSF grant for which I am lead PI that is based on my research program related to these funds. I have been asked to provide expert opinion to evaluate programs related to climate change and nutrient standards. My recommended approach for setting nutrient standards is currently being used by two tribes in Minnesota.

Publications

• Fergus, C.E., P.A. Soranno, K.S. Cheruvelil and M.T. Bremigan. 2011. Multi-scale landscape and wetland drivers of lake total phosphorus and water color. Limnology and Oceanography 56(6):2127-2146. doi:10.4319/lo.2011.56.6.2127
• Martin, S.L., P.A. Soranno, M.T. Bremigan and K.S. Cheruvelil. 2011. Comparing hydrogeomorphic approaches to lake classification. Environmental Management 48:957-974. doi: 10.1007/s00267-011-9740-2.
• Wagner, T., P.A. Soranno, K.E. Webster, and K.S. Cheruvelil. 2011. Landscape drivers of regional variation in the relationship between total phosphorus and chlorophyll. Freshwater Biology. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2427.2011.02621.x
• Soranno, P.A., T. Wagner, S.L. Martin , C. McLean, L.N. Novitski , C.D. Provence, and A.R. Rober. 2011. Quantifying regional reference conditions for freshwater ecosystem management: A comparison of approaches and future research needs. Lake and Reservoir Management 27(2):138-148. doi: 10.1080/07438141.2011.573614.

Progress 01/01/10 to 12/31/10

Outputs
OUTPUTS: I have produced one high-impact publication as a result of this research that has lead to new fundamental and applied understanding of freshwater ecosystems and their relationships to the surrounding landscape. The publication provides a general strategy for the management of thousands of ecosystems for which state and federal natural resource agencies are responsible. My students, collaborators and I gave 5 presentations to scholarly organizations to disseminate our work. We also organized a special symposium on the landscape ecology of freshwater ecosystems that attracted many excellent presentations and interest. In addition, I continue to provide guidance to two tribes in Minnesota about the most scientifically sound approach for developing nutrient criteria in their waterbodies. PARTICIPANTS: Principal investigator, Patricia Soranno. Dr. Soranno oversees the research conducted on this project. She directs the development and maintenance of the landscape-lake database and she has co-authored all publications (to date) for which these are the primary data. Dr. Soranno participates in all aspects of the project including presentations, publications and dissemination to target audiences (see below). Dr. Soranno is currently training two M.S. students who conduct research related to this project. TARGET AUDIENCES: : I target both researchers working on natural resource management issues as well as managers and policymakers who would use my research as applied to management and policy. My collaborators and I have actively participated in disseminating our research results to other researchers through a publication published this year in high impact peer reviewed journal and 5 presentations. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
The high-impact publication that we published received much attention from the media. The press-release announcing the publication was highlighted on over 40 different websites. Because the publication is still new, it has not been directly incorporated into management of natural resources, but our intent is for it to impact future policy and management of freshwaters. We provided the conceptual underpinnings for such management. In this direction, we have received some inquiries related to the use of our approach in management. Our approach has been incorporated into planning in the UK for the Water Framework Directive, which is the EU legislation on water policy that is analogous to the US Clean Water Act. In addition, I have been sought for expert advice by research biologists for a variety of questions related to freshwater management and policy from such organizations as The Nature Conservancy, a consultant for the Platte Lake Watershed Council in Michigan, a consulting agency working for the South Florida Water Management District to set nutrient criteria in estuaries.

Publications

• Soranno, P.A., K.S. Cheruvelil, K.E. Webster, M.T. Bremigan, T. Wagner, and C.A. Stow. 2010. Using landscape limnology to classify freshwater ecosystems for multi-ecosystem management and conservation. BioScience. 60(6):440-454.

Progress 01/01/09 to 12/31/09

Outputs
OUTPUTS: I have produced 2 publications as a result of this research this past year that has lead to new fundamental and applied understanding of freshwater ecosystems and their relationship to the surrounding landscape. I have been invited to give one presentation (to natural resource professionals working for tribes in Michigan), and I have given 4 additional presentations on this work to researchers and natural resource professionals at national conferences. I continue to mentor two graduate students who are actively engaged in this research. In addition, I have made substantial updates to the lake landscape database that I have been overseeing the creation of. We now have over 800 lakes in Michigan for which we have watersheds delineated at a fine spatial resolution and many landscape attributes calculated such as land use/cover from several time steps, watershed slope, relief and shape, and soils and geology. In addition, I continue to work on developing my collaborations with interdisciplinary scientists to use this landscape database for conducting research on human-freshwater interactions. Through my work on the Michigan Water Resources Conservation Advisory Council, I took the lead in drafting a section of the report to the MI State Legislature where we compiled information on the likely effects of large capacity groundwater withdrawal on Michigan's lakes and wetlands. We used my landscape database for some of this report. Finally, I am in the process of providing guidance to two tribes in Minnesota about the most scientifically sound approach to developing nutrient criteria in their waterbodies. This research is ongoing. PARTICIPANTS: Principal investigator, Patricia Soranno. Dr. Soranno oversees the research conducted on this project. She directs the development and maintenance of the landscape-lake database and she has co-authored all publications (to date) for which these are the primary data. Dr. Soranno participates in all aspects of the project including presentations, publications and dissemination to target audiences (see below). Dr. Soranno is currently training two M.S. students who conduct research related to this project. TARGET AUDIENCES: I target both researchers working on natural resource management issues as well as managers and policymakers who would use my research as applied to management and policy. My collaborators and I have actively participated in disseminating our research results to other researchers through 2 publications published this year in high quality peer reviewed journals or books and 5 total presentations. In addition, I was invited to give a presentation to natural resource professionals working on tribal lands. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
My collaborators and I have developed a method to set nutrient standards for lakes and streams using the landscape research from our project that was published in 2008. In addition to this approach changing the action of the state of MI in how they set nutrient standards in their lakes and streams, it also will have the potential to change the action of other states or tribes that use the approach to set standards in their lakes and streams. For example, I am working with the two MN tribes on setting criteria in their water bodies, as well as working with an independent researcher on estimating nutrient standards in a group of high quality lakes for which he serves as a consultant. We expect that this approach will serve to have impact on the condition of lakes across the nation that results in overall higher water quality into the future as the approach is intended to protect existing high water quality in lakes and streams. In addition, the databases that we have collected on Michigan lakes have continued to be valuable to a variety of other researchers, managers and non-profit groups and provided them information for improving knowledge. For example, I provided access to the database to MI's Water Resources Conservation Council to help assess whether lakes will be negatively impacted by groundwater withdrawal.

Publications

• Stow, C.A., E.C. Lamon, S.S. Qian, P.A. Soranno, K.H. Reckhow. 2009. Hierarchical/Multilevel Approaches for Inference and Prediction Using Cross-Sectional Lake Data. In: Real World Ecology: Large-Scale and Long-Term Case Studies and Methods. Miao, S., S, Carstenn, and M. Nungesser, Eds. Springer, New York.
• Soranno, P.A., K.E. Webster, K.S. Cheruvelil and M.T. Bremigan. 2009. The lake landscape-context framework: linking aquatic connections, terrestrial features and human effects at multiple spatial scales. Verh. Internat. Verein. Limnol. 30(5): 695-700.

Progress 01/01/08 to 12/31/08

Outputs
OUTPUTS: I have produced 6 publications as a result of this research that has lead to new fundamental and applied understanding of lakes. I have updated the main lake-landscape database that is used for the Michigan lakes on this project. The database is based on high quality watershed delineations that have been revised and updated using finer resolution spatial data for 500 lakes in Michigan. This database of watersheds is one of the best in the state for these lakes. In addition, I am in the process of extending my collaborations on the project (not formally funded through these funds) to social scientists and geographic scientists. In addition, my collaborators and I have published a paper on a new approach to setting nutrient standards that can be used for lakes or streams which represents an improvement over existing approaches that are presently available to natural resource agencies. In response, I have been asked by two tribes in Minnesota to apply this approach to tribal lakes. Finally, I have been appointed to the Michigan Water Resources Conservation Advisory Council as a lake expert to advice the council on how to determine the environmental impact on large-capacity groundwater withdrawals. PARTICIPANTS: Principal investigator, Patricia Soranno. Dr. Soranno oversees the research conducted on this project. She directs the development and maintenance of the landscape-lake database and she has co-authored almost all publications (to date) for which these are the primary data. Dr. Soranno participates in all aspects of the project including presentations, publications and dissemination to target audiences (see below). TARGET AUDIENCES: My collaborators and I have actively participated in disseminating our research results to other researchers through 6 publications published this year in high quality peer reviewed journals. In addition, my collaborators and I have been invited to give presentations to natural resource professionals about our approach to a national conference sponsored by EPA, a MI Department of Natural Resources meeting of research biologists, and to the newly formed MI Water Resources Advisory Council. All of these talks were focused on applying our science-based knowledge of lake ecology to lake management and policy establishment. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
My collaborators and I have developed a method to set nutrient standards for lakes and streams using the landscape research from our project that was published in 2008. In addition to this approach changing the action of the state of MI in how they set nutrient standards in their lakes and streams, it also will have the potential to change the action of other states or tribes that use the approach to set standards in their lakes and streams. I have been contacted by three different groups to help with setting their standards. We expect that this approach will serve to have impact on the condition of lakes into the future that results in overall higher water quality into the future as the approach is intended to protect the currently high water quality in MI's lakes and streams. In addition, the databases that we have collected on Michigan lakes have continued to be valuable to a variety of other researchers, managers and non-profit groups and provided them information for improving knowledge in particular. For example, we have been asked for our landscape data on lakes in the upper peninsula of MI to study the effects of mercury cycling on relatively pristine lakes from researchers and managers. In addition, we were asked to provide our approach to lake classification to researchers at The Nature Conservancy to think about how to classify the freshwater systems they are considering. Finally, we were asked by another researcher at Michigan State University for data on water color in MI lakes to allow them to choose lakes to sample to address their research objectives.

Publications

• Bremigan, M.T., P.A. Soranno, M.J. Gonzalez, D.B. Bunnell, K.K. Arend, W.H. Renwick, R.A. Stein, and M.J. Vanni. 2008. Hydrogeomorphic features mediate the effects of land use on reservoir productivity and food webs. Limnology and Oceanography. 53(4):1420-1433.
• Webster, K.E., P.A. Soranno, K.S. Cheruvelil, M.T. Bremigan, J.A. Downing, P. Vaux, T. Asplund, L.C. Bacon, and J. Connor. 2008. An empirical evaluation of the nutrient color paradigm for lakes. Limnology and Oceanography. 53(3):1137-1148.
• Soranno, P.A., K.E. Webster, K.S. Cheruvelil and M.T. Bremigan. 2008. The lake landscape-context framework: linking aquatic connections, terrestrial features and human effects at multiple spatial scales. Verh. Internat. Verein. Limnol. 30(5): in press.
• Cheruvelil, K.S. and P.A. Soranno. 2008. Relationships between lake macrophyte cover and lake and landscape features. Aquatic Botany. 88:219-227.
• Cheruvelil, K.S., P.A. Soranno, M.T. Bremigan, T. Wagner, and S.L. Martin. 2008. Grouping lakes for water quality assessment and monitoring: the roles of regionalization and spatial scale. Environmental Management. 41: 425-440.
• Soranno, P.A., K.S. Cheruvelil, R.J. Stevenson, S.L. Rollins, S.W. Holden, S. Heaton, and E.K. Torng. 2008. A framework for developing ecosystem-specific nutrient criteria: Integrating biological thresholds with predictive modeling. Limnology and Oceanography 53(2):773-787.

Progress 01/01/07 to 12/31/07

Outputs
OUTPUTS: I co-sponsored a special session at an international conference on landscape ecology of aquatic ecosystems. I advised the Indiana Department of Natural Resources on how to develop nutrient criteria in their lakes and reservoirs. I am a member of the scientific advisory board to the Center for Water Sciences at Michigan State University. I have produced 3 publications as a result of this research that has lead to new fundamental and applied understanding of lakes. PARTICIPANTS: Principal investigator, Patricia Soranno: Dr. Soranno oversees the research conducted on this project. She directs the development and maintenance of the landscape-lake database, and she co-authors almost all publications (to date) where these are the primary data. In addition, she works to initiate and maintain collaborations with other researchers, graduate students and organizations. To date, through this research project she has reached out to other state agencies (WI, MI, OH, IN, IA, NH and ME) to varying degrees to build the scope of this research (although none of these collaborations receive direct financial support for this project). TARGET AUDIENCES: We are disseminating our results to other researchers as well as to natural resource managers through publications (three have been published this past year) and invited and contributed presentations (four total). We also are working to target the appropriate lake user groups that are interested in our research. Finally, we integrate our research results into the classroom in a variety of ways by including aspects of our research results into both graduate (landscape ecology, advanced limnology) and undergraduate courses (aquatic ecosystem management, limnology). PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: None.

Impacts
We have developed a method to set nutrient standards for lakes and streams using the landscape research from our project. Using relationships between lakes and their surrounding landscape features we have developed a way to identify the natural or reference state of lakes to provide a target for lake management. This approach is currently being written into rule form to be used for Michigan's lakes and streams by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. In addition, our method is currently being explored to be used in other states to set nutrient standards in their lakes and streams. This approach has the benefit that it can be applied to many, if not all lakes in the state, rather than just individual lakes for which we have lots of data. This approach should impact the way that lakes are managed for phosphorus, one of the leading cause of poor water quality impairment in lakes. In addition, the database that we have collected on Michigan lakes has been valuable to other researchers and managers. For example, we provided a list of lakes that appeared to be minimally impacted for the EPA to survey in summer 2007. In addition, we have provided data to other researchers studying the likelihood of invasion by non-native zooplankton species in lakes that should lead to a much better understanding of what lakes need to be managed more carefully to avoid future invasion. We continue to be asked for use of this valuable database that we have created and are maintaining.

Publications

• Wagner, T., Bremigan, M. T., Spence Cheruvelil, K., Soranno, P. A., Nate, N. N., and Breck, J. E. (2007). A multilevel modeling approach to assessing regional and local landscape features for lake classification and assessment of fish growth rates. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 130:437-454.
• Wagner, T. P.A. Soranno, K.S. Cheruvelil, W.H. Renwick, K.E. Webster, P. Vaux, R.J.F. Abbitt. (2007). Quantifying sample biases of inland lake sampling programs in relation to lake surface area and land use/cover. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 130:437-454.
• Jensen, O.P., B.J. Benson, J. J. Magnuson, V.M. Card, M.N. Futter, P.A. Soranno, and K.M. Stewart. (2007). Spatial analysis of ice phenology trends across the Laurentian Great Lakes region during a recent warming period. Limnology and Oceanography 52: 2013-2026.

Progress 01/01/06 to 12/31/06

Outputs
We have completed the building of our landscape context database for Michigan lakes and actually expanded it to include 700 lakes for a variety of different lake and landscape variables. We continue to examine the relative importance of different landscape context variables to predict lake chemistry and biology. In addition, we are quantifying the effects of land use surrounding lakes on lake nutrient concentrations. We have quantified the relative ability of regional (e.g. geology, land use) and local (e.g. lake morphometry, landscape position) landscape features to predict lake physio-chemical variables (e.g. chlorophyll-a, major ion and nutrient concentrations). Because these scales are hierarchical, such that broad-scale landscape features constrain the occurrence of local lake features, we organized lakes using a multi-scale hierarchical framework and used hierarchical linear modeling. Using this multivariate approach that accounts for the non-independence of lakes within regions and partitions variance into variance components at each spatial scale, we found that 1) lakes can best be grouped at regional scales using fine-scaled subecoregions or major river watersheds, 2) both regional and local spatial scales are important for understanding variability in lake physio-chemical variables, and 3) different regional and local features are correlated with different lake physio-chemical variables. These results suggest that coarse-scale regionalizations (e.g. ecoregions) may not effectively group lakes according to lake physio-chemistry and that both regional and local spatial scales are important for understanding lake variability. We are currently using these results to develop a lake classification system for Michigan lakes to group lakes into similar classes that respond similarly to management actions and possibly to anthropogenic disturbance. Because of the importance of land use to lake productivity, we have examined the relationships between land use and lake productivity in more detail using the above data and continue to do so. Although the relationship between watershed land use and stream nutrient concentrations has been quantified across a wide range of stream and watershed types, there have been fewer studies quantifying this relationship for lakes. Here we are exploring the predictability of lake nutrient concentrations and water clarity from the proportion of land use in lake watersheds across 500 Michigan lakes. We are exploring what spatial scale is most important in quantifying the impacts of land use around lakes. This phase of the research is ongoing.

Impacts
We have developed a method to set nutrient standards for lakes and streams using the landscape research from our project. Using relationships between lakes and their surrounding landscape features we have developed a way to identify the natural or reference state of lakes to provide a target for lake management. This approach is currently being written into rule form to be used for Michigan's lakes and streams by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. In addition, our method is currently being explored to be used in other states to set nutrient standards in their lakes and streams.

Publications

• Nelson, S.A.C., K.S. Cheruvelil and P.A. Soranno. 2006. Satellite remote sensing of freshwater macrophytes and the influence of water clarity. Aquatic Botany. 85:289-298.
• Martin, S.L. and P.A. Soranno. 2006. Defining lake landscape position: relationships to hydrologic connectivity and landscape features. Limnology and Oceanography. 51: 801-814.

Progress 01/01/05 to 12/31/05

Outputs
With the landscape context database that we have built for 500 of the major lakes of Michigan, we have been examining the relative importance of different landscape context variables to predict lake chemistry and biology. In addition, we have been able to quantify the effects of land use surrounding lakes on lake nutrient concentrations. Using a digital landscape and lake database of approximately 500 Michigan lakes, we have examined the relative ability of regional (e.g. geology, land use) and local (e.g. lake morphometry, landscape position) landscape features to predict lake physio-chemical variables (e.g. chlorophyll-a, major ion and nutrient concentrations). Because these scales are hierarchical, such that broad-scale landscape features constrain the occurrence of local lake features, we organized lakes using a multi-scale hierarchical framework and used hierarchical linear modeling. Using this multivariate approach that accounts for the non-independence of lakes within regions and partitions variance into variance components at each spatial scale, we found that 1) lakes can best be grouped at regional scales using fine-scaled subecoregions or major river watersheds, 2) both regional and local spatial scales are important for understanding variability in lake physio-chemical variables, and 3) different regional and local features are correlated with different lake physio-chemical variables. These results suggest that coarse-scale regionalizations (e.g. ecoregions) may not effectively group lakes according to lake physio-chemistry and that both regional and local spatial scales are important for understanding lake variability. Because of the importance of land use to lake productivity, we have examined the relationships between land use and lake productivity in more detail using the above data. Although the relationship between watershed land use and stream nutrient concentrations has been quantified across a wide range of stream and watershed types, there have been fewer studies quantifying this relationship for lakes. Here we are exploring the predictability of lake nutrient concentrations and water clarity from the proportion of land use in lake watersheds across 500 Michigan lakes. We are exploring what spatial scale is most important in quantifying the impacts of land use around lakes. This phase of the research is ongoing.

Impacts
We are developing relationships between landscape features (which are relatively easy to collect for each lake) and lake response variables to help better manage lakes at the state level so that lakes can be characterized without having to sample them. For example, we are currently helping the Department of Environmental Quality determine nutrient standards for lakes in the state of Michigan using many of the above landscape relationships to identify what the natural or reference state of lakes are so that we can determine what their nutrient concentrations should be.

Publications

• Martin, S.L. and P.A. Soranno. 2006. Defining lake landscape position: relationships to hydrologic connectivity and landscape features. Limnology and Oceanography. 51: 801-814.
• Bremigan, M.T., S.M. Hanson P.A. Soranno, K.S. Cheruvelil, and R.D. Valley. 2006. Aquatic vegetation, largemouth bass and water quality responses to low-dose fluridone two years post treatment.. Aquatic Plant Management. In press.
• Magnuson, J.J., B.J. Benson, O.P. Jenson, T.B. Clark, V. Card, M.N. Futter, P.A. Soranno, and K.M. Stewart. 2005. Persistence of coherence of ice-off dates for inland lakes across the Laurentian Great Lakes region. Verh. Internat. Verein. Limnol. In press.

Progress 01/01/04 to 12/31/04

Outputs
With the landscape context database that we have built for 500 of the major lakes of Michigan, we are examining the relative importance of different landscape context variables to predict lake chemistry and biology. In addition, we have started to make progress in examining the importance of land use surrounding lakes to predicting lake productivity. Using a digital landscape and lake database of approximately 500 Michigan lakes, we have examined the relative ability of regional (e.g. geology, land use) and local (e.g. lake morphometry, landscape position) landscape features to predict lake physio-chemical variables (e.g. chlorophyll-a, major ion and nutrient concentrations). Because these scales are hierarchical, such that broad-scale landscape features constrain the occurrence of local lake features, we organized lakes using a multi-scale hierarchical framework and used hierarchical linear modeling. Using this multivariate approach that accounts for the non-independence of lakes within regions and partitions variance into variance components at each spatial scale, we found that 1) lakes can best be grouped at regional scales using fine-scaled subecoregions or major river watersheds, 2) both regional and local spatial scales are important for understanding variability in lake physio-chemical variables, and 3) different regional and local features are correlated with different lake physio-chemical variables. These results suggest that coarse-scale regionalizations (e.g. ecoregions) may not effectively group lakes according to lake physio-chemistry and that both regional and local spatial scales are important for understanding lake variability. Because of the importance of land use to lake productivity, we have examined the relationships between land use and lake productivity in more detail using the above data. Although the relationship between watershed land use and stream nutrient concentrations has been quantified across a wide range of stream and watershed types, there have been fewer studies quantifying this relationship for lakes. Here we are exploring the predictability of lake nutrient concentrations and water clarity from the proportion of land use in lake watersheds across 500 Michigan lakes. We hypothesize that some lake types (e.g. drainage lakes) will be more closely tied to the landscape and will be more strongly correlated to watershed land use than other lake types (e.g. seepage lakes). Surprisingly, this pattern held true for urban, but not for agricultural land use. There was a significant positive correlation between urban land use and total phosphorus and total nitrogen for drainage lakes, but not for seepage lakes. In contrast, there was a significant positive correlation between agricultural land use and TP and TN for seepage lakes, but less so for drainage lakes. These results suggest the relative influence of land use types on lakes may depend on landscape context, thus making generalizations difficult.

Impacts
There are too many lakes in the state of Michigan for a state agency to sample every lake to determine how best to manage them. Sampling individual lakes is costly due to labor, laboratory, travel and boat costs. We are developing relationships between landscape features (which are relatively easy to collect for each lake) and lake response variables to help better manage lakes at the state level so that lakes can be characterized without having to sample them. For example, we are currently helping the Department of Environmental Quality determine nutrient standards for lakes in the state of Michigan using many of the above landscape relationships to identify what the natural or reference state of lakes are so that we can determine what their nutrient concentrations should be.

Publications

• Vanni, M.J., Arend, K.K., Bremigan, M.T., Bunnell, D.B., Garvey, J.E., Gonzalez, M.J., Renwick, W.H., Soranno, P.A., and Stein, R.A. 2005. Linking landscapes and food webs: effects of omnivorous fish and watersheds on reservoir ecosystems. BioScience. In press.
• Cheruvelil, K.S. 2004. Examining lakes at multiple spatial scales: predicting fish growth, macrophyte cover and lake physio-chemical variables. PhD Dissertation. Michigan State University.

Progress 01/01/03 to 12/31/03

Outputs
We are building a landscape context model to classify lake ecosystems. An important first step in this research is to organize lakes into landscape context groups. We have just finished building the landscape-context database as well as the lake variable databases to test the model. Although we had collected all the relevant databases last year, we have been working on them for most of this year conducting preliminary analyses, and conducting quality control/quality assurance analyses on them. Given that most of these databases represent very large amounts of data for most of the lakes in the state of Michigan, these two tasks have been very large. We expect this phase to be done by the end of summer 2004, at which time we will organize lakes into groups to develop the model. The second step will be to model the relationships between lake variables (chemistry and lake biology) and the landscape context variables. We will determine if lake chemistry and biological variables are predicted by the landscape-context model. This objective will be completed once objective 1 is completed. To examine the effects of land use on lake variables, we must first complete the first two objectives.

Impacts
We have preliminary evidence that examining landscape features around lakes predicts lake features such as water quality and fisheries quality. These relationships are important because it is easier to collect landscape data for lakes than it is to collect lake data, which will aid in the management of lakes in Michigan.

Publications

• Bruhn, L.C. and P.A. Soranno. Water clarity trends in Michigan lakes and their relationship to ecoregion and land use/cover: 1974-2001. Lake and Reservoir Management. In press.
• Nelson, S.A.C., P.A. Soranno, K.S. Cheruvelil, S.A. Batzli and D.L. Skole. 2003. Regional assessment of lake water clarity using satellite remote sensing. Journal of Limnology 62 (Suppl. 1):27-32.

Progress 01/01/02 to 12/31/02

Outputs
One of the first objectives of this study is to determine the relative importance of different landscape context variables (regional, sub-regional and local) to predict various lake chemical and biological characteristics. Because this project has just recently been initiated, we have not completed this objective. However the status of the research is as follows. We have nearly completed compiling all of the land and water databases for the state of Michigan necessary to begin analysis of this objective. Statistical analysis of the data will begin shortly. I expect the results to lead to significant improvements in our general understanding of lake ecosystems and will help me address the later objectives of this research project, some of which entail examining the effect of human activities on lake ecosystems.

Impacts
Being able to predict what features of the terrestrial-aquatic interface control in-lake and in-stream aquatic processes, and at what scale, is necessary to manage the landscape to meet a number of management objectives for aquatic ecosystems. The management objectives that require this holistic view of the aquatic-terrestrial ecosystem include: (1) maintaining an acceptable water quality, typically defined using criteria for nutrients, algae and the macrophyte communities, (2) maintaining sustainable sport, commercial or recreational fisheries (which is directly related to objective 1), and (3) the preservation of aquatic biodiversity. These management objectives are extremely important to lake and stream managers, lake property owners, and especially the current and future citizens of Michigan. Research that elucidates the above factors more clearly will not only improve our understanding of aquatic ecosystems in general, but also be directly applicable to the management of the thousands of aquatic ecosystems in Michigan, as well as many north temperate systems throughout the world.

Publications

• No publications reported this period

Progress 01/01/01 to 12/31/01

Outputs
Progress has been made in developing the conceptual models that predict the effects of landscape context on lakes, and in gathering the databases to test the model. So far, we have collected landscape data for 10,000 lakes in Michigan and entered them into a Geographic Information database. We have also collected water quality data on a subset of lakes to test the model. Results from a part of the study using a subset of the landscape context variables showed the usefulness of this approach.

Impacts
Presently, it is difficult to manage Michigan's 30,000 lakes individually, becuase each is unique and we cannot sample all lakes. Thus, we need tools to help better understand how these lakes can be managed. This research will help fill our gap in understanding of the role that landscape context plays in predicting lake ecosystems by providing a tool to better understand how to manage the diversity of lakes in Michigan. The MDNR and MDEQ will be able to make use of this tool in the future. Further, the research findings will provide a common dialog for water quality, land use, and fisheries managers, each charged with a limited management mission.

Publications

• Cheruvelil, K.S., P.A. Soranno, and J.D. Madsen. 2001. Epiphytic macroinvertebrate abundance along a gradient of Eurasian water milfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum L.) cover. Journal of Aquatic Plant Management. In press.
• Cheruvelil, K.S., P.A. Soranno, J.D. Madsen and M. Sanborn. 2001. Interactions between plant architecture and epiphytic macroinvertebrates and the influence of Eurasian water milfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum L.). Journal of North American Benthological Society. In press.

Progress 01/01/00 to 12/31/00

Outputs
Predicting the effects of landscape context on ecological processes is a fundamental goal for both terrestrial and aquatic ecology. Landscape context embodies geomorphic, hydrological and physical landscape features that operate at several spatial scales and that potentially interact. As a result, synthesis of the effects of landscape context on ecosystems cannot be achieved if landscape features are studied in isolation. Rather, multi-scaled studies are needed to develop conceptual frameworks and subsequent tools for extrapolating information across scales and for determining the extent to which landscape context can explain variability among systems. For this research effort, progress has been made in developing the conceptual models that predict the effects of landscape context on lakes, and in beginning to gather the databases to test the model. Results from a part of the study using a subset of the landscape context variables showed the usefulness of this approach.

Impacts
This research will help fill our gap in understanding of the role that landscape context plays in predicting lake ecosystems. Further, by determining whether a diverse group of lake characteristics responds similarly to landscape context, and to changes in land use, the research findings will provide a common dialog for water quality, land use, and fisheries managers, each charged with a limited management mission.

Publications

• Webster, K.E, P.A. Soranno, S.B. Baines, T.K. Kratz, C.J. Bowser, P.J. Dillon, P. Campbell, E.J. Fee, R.E. Hecky. 2000. Structuring features of lake districts: Geomorphic and landscape controls on lake chemical responses to drought. Freshwater Biology 43(3):499-515.

Progress 01/01/99 to 12/31/99

Outputs
Landscapes and biological features of lakes both operate to control many aspects of lake ecosystems. Aquatic plants in particular regulate the habitat available for both fish and macroinvertebrates in lakes. Progress was made in identifying the role that an exotic macrophyte species (Eurasian water milfoil) plays in regulating fish and macroinvertebrate dynamics. In lakes where the density of this nuisance species was very high, the densities of macroinvertebrates and some fish population dynamics were significantly different than in lakes with low densities of the exotic plant. This result should have important implications for maintaining healthy fisheries, water quality and general health of lake ecosystems.

Impacts
This research project has important implications for the management of lake ecosystems. The goal of fisheries managers is to maintain a stable and healthy fishery of desirable species, while the goal of lake managers is to maintain good water quality. The results from this project suggest that both water quality and fisheries are tightly coupled and should be managed together.

Publications

• Soranno, P.A., K.E. Webster, J.L. Riera, T.K. Kratz, J.S. Baron, P. Bukaveckas, G. W. Kling, D. White, N. Caine, R.C. Lathrop and P.R. Leavitt. 1999. Spatial variation among lakes within landscapes: Ecological organization along lake chains. Ecosystems 2:395-410.

Progress 01/01/98 to 12/31/98

Outputs
A key objective of this project was to characterize the influence of landscape characteristics on freshwater ecosystems. Progress in this area is being made through the analysis of long-term data of groups of lakes from seven different sites across North America. This research has identified key regulators of lake variability that occurs across different landscapes. In particular, it was found that hydrology (surface versus groundwater), geology (and depth of glacial till), and landscape position are key regulators of lake variability for lakes within different lake districts. These findings are important because they help us understand what factors contribute to the large lake to lake variability we observe within individual lake districts; and they are important because they will help lake managers manage lakes in such a way that incorporates this large variability into different management schemes.

Impacts
(N/A)

Publications

• Lathrop, R.C., Carpenter, S.R., Stow,C.A., P.A. Soranno,P.A., and Panuska,J.C. 1998. Phosphorus loading reductions needed to control blue-green algal blooms in Lake Mendota. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. 55:1169-1178.
• Kratz, T.K., Soranno, P.A., Baines,S.B., Benson, B.J., Magnuson, J.J., Frost, T.M. and Lathrop, R.C. 1998. Interannual synchronous dynamics in north temperate lakes in Wisconsin, USA. In D.G. George et al. (eds). Management of Lakes and Reservoirs during Global Climate Change. Kluwer Academic Publishers, The Netherlands.