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Development of a preliminary vegetation-based indicator of ecosystem health for coastal wetlands of the Laurentian Great Lakes
Journal Title
Ecological Indicators 119 (2020)
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2020
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Wetland plants, due to their sedentary nature, hold great potential for use as indicators of ecosystem condition in
the Great Lakes. However, natural variations in lake levels have historically confounded efforts to create such
indicators. Our goal was to use zone-level vegetation data collected over a seven-year period of low to high water
levels to overcome these difficulties and identify metrics capable of accurately reflecting disturbance despite
lake-level variation. Through a combination of multivariate statistical analyses and a review of the literature, we
identified and tested a series of plant-based metrics for wet meadow, emergent, and submergent zones of lacustrine
coastal wetlands of Western Lake Huron. These were combined into zone-specific indicators of ecosystem
health, which were then applied to wetlands of the remaining Great Lakes to assess basin-wide viability.
The resulting indicators were found to reflect disturbance without bias towards high or low water levels. While
they must be assessed for use in riverine and barrier-beach coastal wetlands before full-scale implementation can
occur, we suggest their use on a preliminary basis in monitoring and management efforts.
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Dybiec, Uzarski: Department of Biology and Institute for Great Lakes Research, Central Michigan University, 1200 S Franklin Street, Mount Pleasant, MI 48859, United States
Albert: Horticulture Department, Oregon State University, 1500 SW Jefferson Avenue, Corvallis, OR 97331, United States
Danz: Department of Natural Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Superior, 1605 Catlin Avenue, Superior, WI 54880, United States
Wilcox: Department of Environmental Science and Biology, SUNY Brockport, 350 New Campus Drive, Brockport, NY 14220, United States