The coastal zone of the Great Lakes (defined here as those onshore and nearshore areas that are or were at one time influenced by coastal and aeolian processes) includes wetlands, drowned river mouths, shallow water habitats, oak savannas, beaches, dunes, relict coastal features and deposits, and abandoned dune fields. These coastal ecosystems offer diverse habitats that support a myriad of plant, fish, and wildlife species. The economy of many coastal areas is dependent on the recreational value of these habitats and the sport fishing, commercial fishing, hunting, birdwatching, and swimming and hiking activities associated with them. Large numbers of seasonal tourists spend millions of dollars on lodging, food, sporting goods, boat and vehicle rentals, gasoline, and personal items, which often represent the major source of income to coastal communities. The ecosystems that supply the fish, wildlife, and recreational facilities underlying that economy have been severely impacted in number, area, and quality. Degradation is often associated with human activity in the coastal zone, including industrial, commercial, residential, and agricultural development, as well as alteration of littoral and other coastal processes that supply the sediments that form and maintain natural features such as dunes, beaches, and sand spits. Yet, surprisingly little is known about the relationships between protection of natural habitat and biota and environmental factors such as water-level change, coastal sediment dynamics, coastal tributary sediment dynamics and hydrology, and ground-water contributions in the coastal zone. Understanding the interactive role of biology, geology, and hydrology in protection and maintenance of coastal features is critical to the survival of the resources important to the people living in and enjoying the coastal zone.

Within the Great Lakes Science Center, interdisciplinary research on coastal ecosystems of the Great Lakes is carried out by the Coastal and Wetland Ecology Branch. Current wetland research efforts fall into three categories, although they are all linked by the common thread of hydrologic fluctuations in the Great Lakes. 1) Long-term studies of the relations between Great Lakes water levels and wetlands have progressed to a five-year study that evaluates the effects on wetland plant communities of water-level regulation on Lake Ontario, develops predictive models for testing a variety of proposed new regulation plans, and helps develop an environmentally sensitive regulation plan. 2) Global climate change studies of wetlands across chronosequences of beach ridges and intervening swales in lakes Michigan and Superior have used coastal sedimentology methods to produce a 4700-yr record of past lake levels that serves as a proxy for climate change, paleoecological and modern plant ecology studies to tie this proxy to plant community changes, and hydrology studies to help explain the interactions between climate change, lake levels, and wetland response. Continuing work will focus heavily on the role of ground-water hydrology and refining proxies for climate change. 3) Wetland restoration and management studies focus largely on FWS refuge lands and ties to hydrology, especially the need for natural hydrologic processes. Restoration of Metzger Marsh in Ottawa NWR in western Lake Erie uses a water-control structure (containing a fish passageway) in the lakeside dike to retain hydrologic connections to the lake; techniques such as use of a temporary aqua-dam are being tested for restoration of adjacent Crane Creek in Ottawa NWR, a drowned-river-mouth wetland that suffered many types of human-induced degradation, continues to be lake-connected, and is bordered by numerous diked wetlands.

The public lands and aquatic ecology programs currently emphasize research on priority topics in support of public lands management, especially management of Great Lakes’ national parks and wildlife refuges in the coastal zone, as well as management of national forests and state and municipal conservation and recreational properties. Investigations are characterized by partnerships with Department of Interior management bureaus, other federal, state, and local resource management agencies, and universities. These investigations recognize the fragmented and highly modified nature of many ecosystems in the Great Lakes region and relate historical patterns of ecological change to contemporary patterns. Research emphasizes four areas. 1) Conservation and restoration of dune ecosystems require a sound knowledge of ecosystem history. Lake-level histories derived from beach ridge chronosequences have been linked qualitatively with the Holocene history of coastal and inland sand dunes. These dunes also have been shown to influence coastal streams, lakes, and wetlands. Continuing studies help to place present processes in paleoecological perspective and to demonstrate a scale of stochastic events not observed previously but clearly prominent in the earth system’s record. 2) Savanna habitats once dominated much of the terrestrial landscape in the western Great Lakes basin but have since been severely diminished and degraded. Fire is central to maintaining and reconstituting these ecosystems. Studies document the effects of different fire regimes on animal and plant populations in historic savanna areas. Degradation of savanna habitats is typically associated with changes in woody vegetation density. Relationships between woody vegetation and animal and plant communities are assessed and the conservation value of different animal and plant assemblages potentially emerging from restoration is evaluated. 3) Beach closures due to bacterial contamination have significant economic and social costs in the Great Lakes coastal zone. Ongoing studies explore the sources and patterns of contamination and examine methods to improve contaminant monitoring. Persistent non-point sources of bacteria are being documented in many environments throughout watersheds in the southern Lake Michigan basin as a potential cause of beach contamination. Currently accepted protocols for assessing bacterial levels at beaches have been systematically evaluated and found to be lacking in effectiveness. Therefore, new monitoring technologies and sampling procedures are being developed and evaluated. 4) Aggressive invasive plant species can have major negative effects on native terrestrial and wetland ecosystems. The distribution, abundance, and patterns of spread of invasive plant species are documented in Great Lakes national parks to assess the role these invasives play in modifying native plant communities. Research studies evaluate potential methods for controlling invasives and assess the importance of factors that might increase susceptibility to invasion, such as land-use history, disturbance, community diversity, and dispersal corridors. Finally, the public lands and aquatic ecology programs also provide research and technical support to public land managers to improve the efficacy of monitoring both biotic and abiotic components of terrestrial and wetland ecosystems. A wide range of species, from bacteria to plants and animals, are investigated, and the relationships of these species to native and disturbed habitats are evaluated.

Studies within the corridor extending from southern Lake Huron through the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River, and into western Lake Erie currently focus on assessing fish and wildlife resources and their habitats. This research provided much of the justification for establishing the new Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge, which will protect remnant stocks of native fish and wildlife and their essential habitats, including lake sturgeon, burrowing mayflies, and over three million migratory waterfowl and the wild celery they depend upon for food. Current initiatives include creation of spawning habitat for lake sturgeon in the Detroit River and use of aquatic remote sensing technologies to evaluate the extent and quality of essential habitats within the corridor. Successful application of such technologies and restoration of aquatic resources will demonstrate to others how they could restore those species to ecosystems elsewhere in the Great Lakes Basin. After being restored in the Huron/Erie corridor, lake sturgeon are expected to recolonize Lake Erie where they once provided a high-value fishery. The restoration of mayflies in the Huron/Erie corridor could be a model for restoration of these benthic insects throughout the Great Lakes basin.

The Great Lakes Science Center will engage in interdisciplinary research to address high priority management issues in coastal ecosystems of the Great Lakes, with continued emphasis on Department of the Interior and other public lands. Coastal ecosystems function at multiple spatial and temporal scales and cannot be divorced from their surrounding watersheds, landscapes, and developmental histories. Understanding of natural functions in coastal ecosystems is necessary to provide support for knowledgeable management decisions; an understanding of the landscape settings and developmental processes that dictate the manner in which those ecosystems operate today is required. Despite its importance, limited information of this type is currently available. Filling that gap in knowledge is the foundation of GLSC future research on coastal ecosystems. Upon that foundation, the interactions between physical and biological processes will be assessed and the effects of natural stressors of coastal ecosystems will be studied. With appropriate background information, the role of human stressors and disturbances can then be evaluated and quantified, including the influence of the increasingly urban matrix in which natural areas are embedded. Efforts will be made to improve the usefulness of research results through communications with natural resource managers, who may then make informed decisions on actions to halt unnatural disturbances and to initiate mitigation or restoration programs. The GLSC will provide scientific guidance to support those management actions, including evaluation of the potential for success, development of methods that are compatible with the natural functions and processes of the ecosystems, evaluation of success in on-land applications, and follow-up studies to support adaptive management such that successful results can be retained. Looking further into the future, the GLSC will evaluate probable long-term evolution of the Great Lakes shoreline, coastal processes, and coastal ecosystems to develop trajectories and models for predicting how the altered coastal zone will behave in the future.