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F-80-R-12, Michigan Study 230756 New Study: 2010-11 Name of Study: Development of Management Scenarios for Lake and Stream Habitat and Fisheries under Current and Future Land-Use and Climate Conditions A. Problem: Successful management of lake and stream habitats and their associated fisheries requires identification of priorities for protecting, enhancing, and restoring aquatic systems. Water bodies can be prioritized based on their sensitivity to human activities and on the ecological, social, and economic values they provide. It has long been recognized that human activities in the watershed strongly modify physicochemical and biological conditions in lakes and streams (Wang et al. 2008, Wang et al. in preparation) and that climate determines the spatial and temporal patterns of physicochemical and biological characteristics of aquatic ecosystems (Wang et al. 2003; Eaton and Scheller 1996). Because the impacts of land-use and climate conditions are not the same for all aquatic ecosystem types, and because society values different types of aquatic resources differently, managers have to prioritize their resources and time to those aquatic systems that are most vulnerable to impacts and have high social and economic values. Presently, such prioritization tools are not available but are urgently needed by aquatic resource managers and policy makers. The physical and chemical characteristics of lakes and streams are important components of fish habitat and play a major role in determining fishery potential. Habitat features such as thermal and hydrologic regimes, trophic state, and oxygen concentrations affect fish mortality, growth, and size structure, which in turn influence patterns of species distribution, abundance, and community structure. Consequently, assessing habitat conditions and quantifying their role in structuring fish communities and regulating population characteristics are necessary for developing effective management strategies. Currently, assessing habitat conditions is limited to those waters where recent surveys have been conducted. Because managers and policy-makers are responsible for all lakes and streams in the state, it would be highly desirable to have a method that allows the assessment of habitat conditions in all water bodies statewide. The habitats of lakes and streams are controlled, in part, by large scale factors such as climate and landscape setting (Wang et al 2003; Wang et al 2008). The influence of large scale factors on fish habitat has two important consequences. First, the diversity of lake and stream types can be readily classified into groups based on large scale factors (Breck et al. in preparation; Brenden et al 2008; Wehrly et al. in preparation). Classification enables managers to make generalizations across classes of waters and provides a cost-effective method for assessing aquatic habitats statewide. Second, human activities, both current and future, have the potential to greatly alter aquatic habitats and the fisheries they support. As a result, we must understand how the habitat suitability of lakes and streams is and will be affected by current and future patterns of climate and land uses. Additionally, identifying management priorities of lakes and streams requires information about how society values those systems because the recreational and aesthetic benefits a resource provides also determines which management actions should be applied and whether management actions are even worthwhile. Although no previous work has been done to comprehensively incorporate human dimension into management prioritization processes in Michigan, the decadeslong angler survey data, the recently developed statewide lake and stream databases, and the recent advancement in GIS technology make this task feasible. F-80-R-12, Study 230756 - 2 How the habitat suitability of lakes and streams is and will be affected by current and future patterns of climate and land uses and how our society uses and values aquatic resource types is the information that fisheries managers and policy makers must have for prioritizing management efforts, developing strategies for those waters where management efforts may be more successful, and educating policy makers and the public about the need to change management practices in response to changes in lake and stream fisheries due to land-use and climate changes. B. Objectives: The overall objective of this project is to develop a tool that incorporates land-use and climate change scenarios and societal values of lakes and streams to identify management priorities based on assessed sensitivity and risk. The specific objectives of this study are to: 1. Assess habitat conditions for all lakes and streams statewide under current land-use and climate conditions. 2. Determine how current habitat conditions influence sport fish populations and fish community structure in lakes and streams 3. Determine the potential changes in habitat suitability, sport fish populations, and fish community structure in response to changes in land-use and climate conditions. 4. Identify and map the lakes and streams that are most at risk to change. 5. Develop statistical models to predict how anglers use lake and stream resources at a statewide scale. 6. Generate information for evaluating none-fisheries uses of lake and stream resources at a statewide scale using GIS techniques. 7. Prioritize lakes and streams for management based on their habitat and fisheries risks and social uses and values. C. Expected Results and Benefits: An integrated GIS database that contains all river reaches and lakes for the state will be developed. This database will provide users with comprehensive information about all Michigan’s inland aquatic systems (except wetlands), which is invaluable to ecosystem management planning, policy development, and local management decision-making. In addition to the landscape and local data that were developed by previous studies, this database will contain newly synthesized or modeled information related to habitat suitability, sport fish populations, fish community structure, and human uses of lakes and streams. This database will also contain location, health status, and associated societal values for the river reaches and lakes that are most vulnerable to current and projected climate and land-use changes. Peer reviewed journal articles associated with each objective will be prepared and published. The results and deliverables of this project will provide management agencies and the public with (1) a better understanding of how fish populations and fish community types are shaped by both regional- and site-scale factors, which is critically important for science-based management decision making; (2) an assessment of habitat conditions in all lakes and streams under current land-use and climate conditions for managers to protect intact, to restore degraded, and to enhance modified systems; (3) projected habitat conditions for all lakes and streams under future land-use and climate conditions for managers to use for adjusting and adapting management practices; and (4) a list of at-risk ecosystems based on current and future habitat conditions and social and economic values of lakes and streams for managers to prioritize management efforts. D. Procedures: The existing stream and lake databases will be integrated into one database. A stream database that includes all confluence-to-confluence stream reaches in Michigan, their associated network and local catchment, and their major landscape and network descriptors has F-80-R-12, Study 230756 - 3 been developed by a previous federal aid project during 2005-2009. A lake database that contains all lakes that are 5 acres or bigger, their tributary and local catchment boundaries, and major landscape and network descriptors has also been developed by an on-going federal aid project (2008-2011). This project will integrate these two databases into one database and expand the database with additional data generated by this project. To enable assessment of all waters, we will develop models that predict responses of habitat to changes in land-use and climate for the major types of streams (Brenden et al. 2008, Lyons et al. 2009) and lakes (Wehrly et al. in preparation) based on classifications developed in this region. We will refine temperature models for predicting river temperature (Wehrly et al. 2009) and lake surface temperature (Breck, in preparation) developed for this region. Air temperature, flow regime, and groundwater contribution will be included as key predictors of these temperature models. Projected land-use changes for every five years from 2000 to 2040 will be used to evaluate changes in habitat under different land use scenarios. The projected land-use changes for Michigan will be provided by a complementary project that is funded by USGS for modeling land-use changes at 300-m resolution across the lower 48 states and at 100-m resolution for the Midwestern states. In this process, we will also use fish community data collected from lake and stream Status and Trends surveys, predicted river flow discharge and groundwater contribution potentials for all river reaches (including those flowing in and out of the lakes), and continuous summer water temperature for many river reaches and lakes in Michigan. We will use down-scaled climate model outputs and predicted land-use changes as inputs in our temperature and flow models to project potential changes in flow and thermal regimes for the river reaches and lakes in the state. The down-scaled climate model outputs, including projected air temperature and precipitation changes for every five years from 2010 to 2040, will be provided by a complementary USGS funded project for the Midwestern states. These flow and thermal regime predictions will incorporate the uncertainty/scenarios in the climate and land-use change models. We will identify all the stream reaches and lakes and associated fish communities that are most vulnerable to climate and land-use changes for the purpose of recommending adaptive management scenarios. We will synthesize societal uses information by compiling available databases, such as fishing license sale database, fish stocking database, and fishing access database, to synthesize societal use information. We will also use human population data and GIS tools to measure proximity of lakes and streams to population centers. Additionally, Michigan DNR has been conducting angler surveys on inland waters for several decades. A total of 221 angler surveys have been conducted for inland waters in Michigan since the1980s. We will link the anglers’ survey data with fish stocking, proximity to population centers, water body types, and other relevant information to predict angler uses for all waters statewide. Because of the sparseness of the angler survey data, we will use regression techniques to examine factors affecting angling effort and harvest, and establish statistical models that can be used to predict fishing activities and harvest for inland waters for which no angler survey estimates are available. A similar approach has been used to estimate statewide angling effort and harvest for inland lakes in Minnesota (Cook and Younk 2001). We will last develop two sets of management scenarios. The first set of scenarios will be the lake and stream management priorities determined based on the current land-use and climate conditions and the societal values of those waters. The second set of scenarios will be the lake and stream management priorities identified based on the projected land-use and climate conditions and the societal values of those waters. Job 1. Develop statistical models to estimate seasonal and annual temperature patterns in lakes and streams. F-80-R-12, Study 230756 - 4 Job 2. Develop statistical and simulation models to estimate lake temperature and oxygen profiles. Job 3. Develop statistical models that describe the relations between fish community types and habitat variables.–For streams these include stream size, water temperature, and stream flow regimes. For lakes, these include surface temperatures, stratification pattern, and oxygen concentrations. Job 4. Develop and calibrate a bioenergetics-based fish community models to simulate the size and age structure of fish populations as a function of habitat variables.–The bioenergetics-based fish community models will predict changes in age and size structure for populations of both prey and predator species in response to differences in temperature, productivity, and lake morphology under current and future land-use and climate conditions. Job 5. Assemble and generate data that describe societal uses of lakes and streams. Job 6. Develop statistical models to estimate fishing effort and harvest. Job 7. Assess potential changes in habitat suitability, fish community types, changes in size and age structure of fish populations, and fishing effort and harvest under alternative climate and land-use change scenarios. Job 8. Identify and map stream and lake types that are most vulnerable to current and future land-use and climate conditions. Job 9. Write annual performance reports. Job 10. Write manuscripts for publication.–Fisheries research reports or journal publications will be prepared describing the findings of the project. Job 11. Publish manuscripts.–This job entails final editing and printing of the research manuscript or journal article produced under job 10. Job 12. Write final report.–A final report citing the publications produced under job 11 will be prepared. F-80-R-12, Study 230756 - 5 E. Schedule/Budget1: Proposed work Job 1 Job 2 Job 3 Job 4 Job 5 Develop temperature models Develop lake profile models Develop fish community/habitat models Develop bioenergetics models Assemble and generate human dimension data Job 6 Develop fishing effort and harvest models Job 7 Assess future habitat and fish changes Job 8 Identify and map vulnerable waters Job 9 Write annual performance reports Job 10 Write manuscripts Job 11 Publish manuscripts Job 12 Write final report Totals 1 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 23,764 20,340 15,177 12,310 15,012 10,474 23,396 5,072 NA 7,693 10,788 11,472 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 15,242 9,614 NA NA NA 9,642 NA NA 1,457 NA NA NA 17,086 NA NA 1,501 NA NA NA NA 12,801 20,474 1,546 30,176 NA NA NA 25,902 27,407 1,593 28,574 10,840 NA NA NA NA NA NA 17,715 2,157 97,932 82,155 94,950 94,316 19,872 NA = not scheduled F. Geographical Location: Michigan statewide G. Personnel: Lizhu Wang, Kevin Wehrly, Jim Breck, Zhenming Su, and Trevor Havelka, Institute for Fisheries Research, 1109 N. University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. Literature Cited: Breck, J. E., K. E. Wehrly, L. Wang, and L. Szabo-Kraft. In Preparation. Landscape based classification of Michigan inland lakes for resource management. Brenden, T., L. Wang, and P. W. Seelbach. 2008. A landscape-based river classification system for Michigan rivers and streams for fisheries and environmental management. Transactions of American Fisheries Society 137: 1621-1636. Cook, M. F. and J. A. Younk. 2001. A recalculation of the annual statewide recreational fishing effort and harvest in Minnesota lakes. Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Investigation Report 493. Eaton, J. G., and R. M. Scheller. 1996. Effects of climate warming on fish thermal habitat in streams of the United States. Limnology and Oceanography 41: 1109-1115. Lyons, J., T. Zorn, J. Stewart, P. Seelbach, K. Wehrly, L. Wang. 2009. Defining and characterizing coolwater streams and their fish assemblages in Michigan and Wisconsin, USA. North American Journal of Fisheries Management 29: 1130–1151. Wang, L., T. Brenden, P. W. Seelbach, A. Cooper, D. Allan, R. Clark, Jr., and M. Wiley. 2008. Landscape based identification of human disturbance gradients and references for streams in Michigan. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 141: 1-17. F-80-R-12, Study 230756 - 6 Wang, L., J. Lyons, P. Rasmussen, P. Kanehl, P. Seelbach, T. Simon, M. Wiley, E. Baker, S. Niemela, and M. Stewart. 2003. Influences of landscape- and reach-scale habitat on stream fish communities in the Northern Lakes and Forest ecoregion. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Science 60: 491-505. Wang, L., K. E. Wehrly, J. E. Breck, and L. Kraft. In preparation. Landscape based assessment of human disturbance in Michigan lakes. Wehrly, K. E., T. Brenden, and L. Wang. 2009. A comparison of statistical approaches for predicting stream temperatures across heterogeneous landscapes. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 45: 986-997. Wehrly, K. E., L. Wang, J. E. Breck, and L. Kraft. In preparation. Landscape based fisheries classification for Michigan inland lakes.