1. ABSTRACT “So subtle has been its progress that few residents of the region are aware of it. It is quite invisible to the tourist who finds this wrecked landscape colorful and charming.” -Aldo Leopold in The Land Ethic (A Sand County Almanac) Changes to the landscape and climate are placing new constraints on Minnesota lake habitats and biologic communities. Conventional urban development and agricultural practices that are growing in extent, contribute large amounts sediment and phosphorus runoff into lakes. Marshy shorelines that were once deemed unsuitable for development are now in high demand for residential development. A highly mobile human population unwittingly disperses non-native invasive species. To make matters worse, climate change has the potential to exacerbate the aforementioned stressors on lake habitats and fish populations, if not fundamentally alter habitat suitability for species. The net outcome of climate change and large landcover alterations is warmer, more productive waters. Accordingly, the mission of the SLICE program is to monitor major stressors, their impact on key lake habitat and fish indicators, and to recommend proactive measures to either slow anthropogenic impacts (e.g., minimizing impervious coverage in watersheds), or adapt to unavoidable changes to lake habitats (e.g., shifting management focus to cool or warmwater fisheries where coldwater fish habitat will disappear due to warming water temperatures). MILESTONES AND LOOKING AHEAD SLICE represents an iterative, adaptive learning process. As such, we will evaluate the program in phases with the first one coming due in 2012. In 2012 we expect to deliver on the following 1.24 detailed lake assessment reports establishing “baseline” conditions for all sentinel lakes and their watersheds. 2. Retrospective analyses and predictive modeling of drivers that shaped past, present, and potentially future habitat conditions. 3.Identification of a set of key indicators that best represent lake habitat status and a monitoring schedule that measures status that allows for quick proactive measures and does so with high efficiency. 4.Full development of the split-panel design monitoring framework. In other words, which indicators should be monitored more frequently in the sentinel lakes and which ones should be monitored less frequently in a wider range of “random” lakes. In 2012, we will also evaluate our choice of sentinel systems and whether to replace, add, or drop any lakes during the next evaluation phase (2012-2016). Looking ahead: we are looking for collaborative opportunities to develop many other status indicators that we currently don’t have the resources to explore. These include: 1.Sensitive areas within lakes (e.g., shallow bays, areas of high floral or faunal diversity) 2.Rapid assessment mapping of coarse woody habitat 3.Phytoplankton, periphyton, or macroinvertebrate indicators Looking ahead: The future success of SLICE depends on long-term dedicated funding. Future discussions will be centered on how SLICE fits into Clean Water Legacy, Outdoor Heritage, Environmental Trust Fund (LCCMR), and Game and Fish Funding mechanisms. Looking ahead: SLICE realizes its namesake only if it affects natural resource policy and peoples’ behaviors. A long-term commitment to monitoring empowers citizens and decision makers to make more informed decisions about actions that may improve or impair the health of our lakes. REFERENCES Drake and Valley 2005. Ramstack et al. 2004. Scheffer and Carpenter. 2003 Smol 2008. LONG-TERM STRATEGY Current challenges to lake habitats go well beyond DNR Fisheries jurisdictional boundaries and confronting these challenges will require greater cooperation and collaboration with the MPCA, Universities, local units of government (e.g., SWCD’s), NGO’s, and citizen groups. Through these partnerships we can begin to not only put the scattered pieces of the puzzle together and clarify the state and trajectory of our lakes, but also to take measures to protect water quality and fish populations. DNR fisheries currently administers a long-term lake survey program that periodically (every 5 – 10 years) surveys game fish populations in approximately 2200 MN lakes. Consequently, DNR Fisheries has the necessary infrastructure to support many aspects of SLICE. However, infrequently collecting small amounts of data in many systems has left us with limited understanding of cause-effect mechanisms shaping habitats and fish populations in lakes. This has hampered our ability to predict the outcomes of alterations to the landscape on lake habitats and fish populations. With SLICE, we will mesh intensive monitoring in a range of sentinel lakes, with our current extensive approach to lake surveys. This design will give us greater inference into cause-effect mechanisms while maintaining the benefits of periodically sampling many lakes. LONG-TERM GOALS OF SLICE 1.Monitor relevant landcover (i.e. habitat), climate, and other environmental stressors. 2.Monitor the effect of stressors on lake habitats and aquatic communities. 3.Forecast changes to lake habitats and fish populations given possible changes in stressor levels. 4.Outline and evaluate actions taken to mitigate stressors (e.g., land protection/restoration, outreach and education, assistance to local units of government to implement low-impact growth practices), protect or restore resilience mechanisms in lakes (e.g., harvest restrictions, aquatic plant management policies, shoreland rules), or adapt to unavoidable changes to habitat (e.g., shifting management focus away from failing coldwater fisheries to either coolwater or warmwater fisheries). FIRST STEPS 1.A phase-1 four year study in 24 sentinel lake watersheds spread across the state to build partnerships and focus energies on developing key indicators and stressor measures for continued long-term monitoring. 2.Evaluate historic and recent changes to habitat and fish communities in the sentinel lakes. 3.At the most appropriate biological scale, identify key proxies that indicate changes in nutrient loading, water temperature, hydrologic flows, removal of upland and submersed vegetative or woody cover, human recreation and exploitation, and non- native species invasions. 4.Using lake and watershed models simulate the outcomes of urban development, agricultural practices and climate change on habitats in the sentinel lakes. 5.Identify a set of habitat and fish indicators that are most responsive to land use and climate stressors. 6.Evaluate the current status of habitat and fish indicators in each sentinel lake compared with the range of indicator values in similar lakes where data are available. 7.Design of a robust, long-term SLICE program that will give us statewide inference into current status of lakes and forecast change due to different environmental and management scenarios. WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO OUR LAKES? Outcomes of conventional Development and Ag. practices coupled with climate change Warmer water temps Longer growing seasons Increased runoff  More productive waters Increases in productivity will lead to slow losses in lake resilience resulting in unstable lake conditions, and eventually a shift to a highly resilient, impaired condition Trying to restore a desirable clear water state can be an uphill battle! We need to work to slow this progressive loss of resilience P concentration – loss of resiliency Resilient: Clear-water; abundant plants Resilient: Turbid water; no plants Unstable: Plants/Algae Boom & Bust Figure 1. Stability of lake regimes as a function of phosphorus enrichment. From Scheffer and Carpenter 2003; Trends in Ecology and Evolution 18(12): 648-656 SCHEDULED AND PROPOSED ACTIVITIES All Lakes (2008 - 2011) Weekly to bi-weekly (Apr. – Oct.) – lake levels, temp-DO profiles Monthly – TP, TN, Nitrates, Chl a, pH, pelagic zooplankton Seasonally – Total Suspended Solids, Total Suspended Volatiles, Total Organic Carbon, Alkalinity, Ca, Mg, Na, K, SO 4, Cl Annually – Aquatic plant spp. frequency, non-game nearshore fish, game fish, cisco size and abundance Where possible – Acoustic bathymetry and plant mapping, curly-leaf pondweed mapping, emergent mapping, shoreline sensitivity Super-sentinel lakes – proposed sites of high resolution data collection and mechanistic modeling In Carlos, Elk, and Trout, we will establish meteorological and water quality data collection platforms Collection of high-resolution data along with hydrological, landcover, soil, and elevation GIS-layers will facilitate predictive modeling that can model the effects of landuse and climate change on lake habitat. Modeling exercises will help up us simulate “what if scenarios” and facilitate proactive management responses. Reconstruction of historical water chemistry, sedimentation, and correlation with climate and landuse stressors THE SENTINEL LAKES Lake selection criteria 4 Ecoregions x 2 depth classes (stratified and mixed) x 3 Ecoregion & depth-specific P-classes (low, med, high; Figure 2. From this pool of candidates, additional criteria used were Area Fisheries workloads, historical datasets, unique partnership opportunities Figure 2. Sentinel lakes to be focus of 4-yr pilot monitoring study Table 1. Basic attributes of the sentinel lakes The sentinel lakes will be part of a “split-panel” monitoring design and serve as sites of intensive monitoring. Based on results from the 4-yr pilot, recommendations will be made on appropriate rapid assessment indicators to monitor less often in a wider range of lakes Sentinel lakes will be the sites of intensive monitoring of multiple meteorological, physical, chemical, and biological parameters by DNR, PCA, USGS, and US Forest Service – Superior National Forest staff. Year Split-Panel Design = “Panel” or monitored lake 1 3 2 5 4 7 6 8 St. Louis Itasca Cass Lake Polk Beltrami Aitkin Pine Cook Koochiching Otter Tail Clay Roseau Marshall Becker Todd Stearns Kittson Swift Lyon Pope Morrison Wilkin Renville Carlton Martin Hubbard Rice Wright Norman Fillmore Mower Crow Wing Nobles Murray Grant Sibley Brown Lake of the Woods Clearwater Rock Redwood Kandiyohi Douglas Jackson Meeker Goodhue Winona Isanti Faribault Dakota Freeborn Olmsted Lincoln Blue Earth Scott Stevens Anoka Mille Lacs Houston Steele Traverse Dodge Wadena Nicollet McLeod Hennepin Kanabec Chippewa Wabasha Benton Lac Qui Parle Carver Pennington Big Stone Cottonwood Waseca Chisago Mahnomen Le Sueur Yellow Medicine Pipestone Red Lake Sherburne Watonwan Washington Ramsey Elk Tait Echo Hill Trout Pearl Cedar Belle Carrie Carlos Portage Peltier Madison St. Olaf Elephant Bearhead Red Sand Ten Mile Shaokotan St. James Artichoke South Twin White Iron South Center Sentinel Lakes Ecoregion " ) Cold Water (Cisco or Trout) Deep Shallow ^ _ Super sentinel BORDER LAKES N. CENTRAL HARDWOOD FOREST NORTHERN LAKES AND FORESTS WESTERN CORNBELT PLAINS Lake Type 1840s Today Dr. Mark Edlund paloelimnologist with the Science Museum of Minnesota - St. Croix Watershed research station Lake sediments archive a wealth of information about historical lake conditions including: water chemistry, eutrophication, aquatic plants, erosion, sedimentation, and hypolimnetic oxygen (Smol 2008) Patterns in past lake conditions can be correlated with major environmental events of the past (e.g., climate cycles, landuse changes) to determine what effect these stressors may have on lake habitats in the future given climate change or changes in landuse patterns (Ramstack et al. 2004) Research by the St. Croix Watershed Research Station will reconstruct historical water chemistry and sedimentation in seven sentinel lakes harboring cisco populations. This work will establish baseline water quality conditions in these lakes and will evaluate the degree that major climate cycles (e.g., warm-wet, cool-dry) or landuse change influenced lake conditions. CONSEQUENCES ON FISH 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 253545556575 Trophic state Fish-based IBI For > 60% For Ag & For Ag, For & Urban Ag Urban 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 Figure 3. Fish based biotic integrity as a function of watershed landuse and trophic state index. To the extent that climate and landuse changes increases lake eutrophication, we expect declines in fish community integrity (From Drake and Valley 2005) Figure 4. As lakes become warmer and growing seasons lengthen, we expect shifts in species guilds from cold or coolwater species to warm water species. Hydroacoustics as a tool to assess the status of cisco in inland lakes Distribution of 648 lakes where cisco have been sampled in Minnesota DNR surveys since 1946 BioSonics ® hydroacoustic equipment mounted on a 16-ft jonboat Echogram displaying acoustic signal from fish. Species composition from simultaneous netting is used to determine what proportion of the acoustic signals were likely cisco Research led by UMD Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tom Hrabik Will evaluate acoustic tools for assessing cisco size and abundance in inland lakes Additional collaborations with DNR Fisheries Research (Pete Jacobson and Andrew Carlson) will explore patterns of cisco diet and habitat use.