Publications

Coastal geomorphology along the Great Lakes has long been linked with lake-level history. Some of the most spectacular landforms along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan are high-relief dunes that mantle lake terraces. It has been assumed that these dunes developed during the Nipissing high stand of ancestral Lake Michigan. This hypothesis was tested through stratigraphic analyses and...

Data from mark-recapture studies are used to estimate population rates such as exploitation, survival, and growth. Many of these applications assume negligible tag loss, so tag shedding can be a significant problem. Various tag shedding models have been developed for use with data from double-tagging experiments, including models to estimate constant instantaneous rates, time-dependent...

The southern Lake Michigan basin in northwest Indiana possesses a variety of aquatic habitats including riverine, palustrine, and lacustrine systems. The watershed draining this area is a remnant of glacial Lake Chicago and supports fish communities that are typically low in species richness. Composition of the presettlement Lake Michigan fish community near the Indiana Dunes has been...

A field study was conducted in the lower Great Lakes to assess changes in spatial distribution and population structure of dreissenid mussel populations. More specifically, the westward range expansion of quagga mussel into western Lake Erie and toward Lake Huron was investigated and the shell size, density, and biomass of zebra and quagga mussel with depth in southern Lake Ontario in...

We tested the hypothesis that the efficiency with which fish retain polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners from their food strongly depends on Kow and degree of chlorination of the congener. We used diet information, determinations of concentrations of individual PCB congeners in both coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) and their prey, and bioenergetics modeling to estimate the...

This article chronicles the ascent, dominance, and decline of the alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) in the Great Lakes and tracks the gradual accumulation of knowledge on the fish's effect on the aquatic community. Changes in management strategies for alewife are followed, and the current management dilemma is framed in light of the alewife's effect on inidigenous fishes and the changing...

Forage base allocation, which has become an important issue because of major changes in the fish communities and fisheries of the Great Lakes since the 1950s is examined and documented in this chapter. Management initiatives that were used to address the issue, and supporting research and development that provided new or improved methods of field sampling and analysis are also...

Aquatic algal communities are sensitive to environmental stresses and are used as indicators of water quality. Diatoms were collected from three streams that drain the Great Marsh at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Diatom communities, water chemistry, and land use were measured at each site to test the hypothesis that differences in land use indirectly affect diatom communities...

The Calumet Region was shaped by geologic forces, succession, and interacting biomes converging on a unique natural landscape. Over the past 4500 years, a strand plain has formed to the north of a geologic area called Toleston Beach. Sequential and differential primary succession of dune and swale communities in this region allowed species from different biomes to interact freely. In the...

The process of apoptosis, often coined programmed cell death, involves cell injury induced by a variety of stimuli including xenobiotics and is morphologically, biochemically, and physiologically distinct from necrosis. Apoptotic death is characterized by cellular changes such as cytoplasm shrinkage, chromatin condensation, and plasma membrane asymmetry. This form of cell suicide is...

The Mountain Chickadee (Poecile gambeli), a small, cavity-nesting songbird, is one of the most common birds of montane and coniferous forest from southern Arizona and Baja California north to British Columbia and the Yukon territory. This publication describes the life history of the Mountain Chickadee.

Two exotic species of dreissenid mussels (Dreissena polymorpha and D. bugensis) began to colonize bottom substrates in Presque Isle Bay, Lake Erie in 1990. By 1991, all native unionid (Unionidae) shells were infested by dreissenids. In 1990 and 1991, about 500 individual unionids of 15 species were collected: in 1992, 246 individuals of 12 species were collected; in 1993, 64 individuals...