Publications

The removal of the remnants of three hydroelectric dams on the Kalamazoo River near Plainwell, Otsego, and Allegan, Michigan, has been proposed. The benefits of this removal include returning the Kalamazoo River to its pre-dam flow, increasing recreational use and safety on the river, and improving aquatic habitat. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has designated this reach of the...

We constructed alternative spatial models at two scales to predict Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater) parasitism rates from land cover maps. The local-scale models tested competing hypotheses about the relationship between cowbird parasitism and distance of host nests from a forest edge (forest-nonforest boundary). The landscape models tested competing hypotheses about how landscape...

As part of continuing efforts to improve the water quality of Geneva Lake, a collaborative effort between the U.S. Geological Survey, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the Geneva Lake Environmental Agency was initiated in 1997 to document the present quality of the lake and its sediments, compute detailed hydrologic and nutrient (primarily phosphorus) budgets for the...

Sediments from the Wisconsin River, WI, USA are contaminated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachloro-p-dioxin (TCDD) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Wet weight concentrations of TCDD and PCBs in eggs were at background levels and highest in the piscivorous hooded merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus; geometric mean=7 pg/g TCDD and 0.92 μg/g PCBs) and lowest in the omnivorous wood duck (Aix sponsa) (

Benthic algae were collected from 20 streams in the Western Lake Michigan Drainages by the U.S. Geological Survey in May and June of 1993 as part of the National Water-Quality Assessment program. These streams were selected to represent "benchmark" streams that were minimally affected by human activities, especially agriculture, for comparison to other streams in similar environmental...

The distribution and status of Iowa's fishes were last extensively described in Iowa Fish and Fishing (Harlan et al. 1987). Since then, numerous fish collections have been made in Iowa's interior and bordering rivers and streams. Excluding non-native species, there have been three documented accounts of new fish species distributional records in Iowa since 1987. In this paper, I describe...

Abundance of fishes of the main channels of the upper Mississippi River system and of other large North American rivers is largely unknown because historic sampling methods have been inadequate. We used a bottom trawl to estimate spatial and temporal patterns in abundance in the navigation channels of Pool 26 of the Mississippi River and the lower Illinois River. Total biomass density...

DNA sequence analysis of a 215 base-pair region of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene was used to examine genetic variation and search for evidence of an increased mutation rate in black-crowned night-herons. We examined five populations exposed to environmental contamination (primarily PAHs and PCBs) and one reference population from the eastern U.S. There was no evidence of a high...

Streams receiving runoff from General Mitchell International Airport (GMIA), Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, were studied to assess toxic impacts of aircraft and runway deicers. Elevated levels of constituents related to deicing (propylene glycol, ethylene glycol, and ammonia) were observed in stream samples. The LC50s of type I deicer for Ceriodaphnia dubia, Pimephelas promelas, Hyalela...

1 November 2001. Conservation of bird habitats is a major focus of effort by Partners in Flight, an international coalition of agencies, citizens, and other groups dedicated to 'keeping common birds common'. USGS worked on a planning team to publish a bird conservation plan for the Upper Great Lakes Plain ecoregion (PIF 16), which includes large portions of southern Wisconsin, southern...

We studied the main channel of the lower Illinois River and of the Mississippi River just upstream and downstream of its confluence with the Illinois River to describe the abundance, composition, and/or seasonal appearance of components of the main-channel community. Abundance of fishes in the main channel was high, especially adults. Most adult fishes were present in the main channel...

The primary source of ground water for the city of Rochester, Olmsted County, southeastern Minnesota is the St. Peter-Prairie du Chien-Jordan aquifer. Based on results of a previous U.S. Geological Survey investigation in the Rochester area, relatively high rates of areal recharge to the St. Peter-Prairie du Chien-Jordan aquifer occur along the edge of the overlying Decorah-Platteville...