Douglas A. Wilcox

State University of New York -- Brockport · Department of Environmental Science and Ecology

Invasive cattails (Typha angustifolia and Typha × glauca) pose a problem for many Laurentian Great Lakes wetlands, especially sedge/grass meadows. In western Lake Superior, early signs of invasion into sedge-dominated peatlands along the Kakagon and Bad Rivers, owned and managed by the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, were noticed in the e...

Fen development along a drowned-river-mouth tributary to Braddock Bay, Lake Ontario was studied to address its formation. Nested piezometers were installed to assess groundwater contributions and obtain water chemistry samples. Soil and geology information came from existing sources. We converted paleo lake levels from published reports to IGLD1985...

Field observations and measurements of wetland plants have traditionally been used to monitor and evaluate wetland condition; however, there has been increasing use of remote sensing applications for rapid evaluations of wetland productivity and change. Combining key aspects of field-and remote sensing-based wetland evaluation methods can provide m...

Loss of Great Lakes wetlands due to changes in land use, hydrology, nutrient inputs, and invasive species led to the need for studies involving physical factors that influence growth of invasive cattails (Typha). Thus, in 18 Lake Ontario coastal wetlands, we sampled vegetation along stratified random transects and collected water samples for total...

Great Lakes coastal wetlands (GLCW) have been severely degraded by anthropogenic activity over the last several decades despite their critical role in fish production. Many Great Lakes fish species use coastal wetland habitats for spawning, feeding, shelter, and nurseries throughout the year. The goal of our study was to compare GLCW fish community...

Water-level fluctuations are critical in maintaining diversity of plant communities in Great Lakes wetlands. Sedge-grass meadows are especially sensitive to such fluctuations. We conducted vegetation sampling in a sedge-grass dominated Lake Michigan drowned river mouth wetland in 1995, 2002, and 2010 following high lake levels in 1986 and 1997. We...

Sedges and grasses have a competitive advantage over cattails at higher elevations in Great Lakes wetlands where periodic low lake levels result in soils too dry to support cattails. Regulation of Lake Ontario water levels eliminated low lake-level years, resulting in cattail invasion. At a wetland scale at two Lake Ontario sites, we tested restora...

Water-level fluctuations are critical in maintaining the diversity of plant communities in Great Lakes wetlands. Sedge/grass meadows are especially sensitive to such fluctuations. We conducted vegetation sampling in a sedge/grass-dominated Lake Michigan drowned-river-mouth wetland in 1995, 2002, and 2010 that followed high lake levels in 1986 and 1...

Field observations and measurements of wetland plants have traditionally been used to monitor and evaluate wetland condition; however, there has been increasing use of remote sensing applications for rapid evaluations of wetland productivity and change. Combining key aspects of field- and remote sensing-based wetland evaluation methods can provide...

Shoreline wetlands along Lake Ontario are valuable, multi-functional resources that have historically provided large numbers of important ecosystem goods and services. However, alterations to the lake’s natural hydrologic regime have impacted traditional meadow marsh in the wetlands, resulting in competition and colonization by dense and aggressive...

Lake-level regulation that began in 1960 eliminated large fluctuations of Lake Ontario water levels, altering coastal wetland plant communities. More than a half century later, the altered hydroperiod supports dense, monotypic stands of invasive cattail (Typha angustifolia and Typha x glauca), which have diminished overall plant community diversity...

Wetland zonation, which can be caused by succession (i.e., temporal trends), physical factors (i.e., elevation, hydrology, and salinity gradients), and biological interactions (i.e., competition and predation), can play significant roles in wetland ecosystem goods and services. Additionally, direct and indirect impacts from biotic and abiotic stres...

Water chestnut (Trapa natans L.) is a notorious aquatic invasive species invading wetlands and waterways of the northeastern United States. In the Great Lakes watershed, specifically Lake Ontario coastal wetlands, water chestnut grows in areas similar to the native white water lily (Nymphaea odorata Aiton). To understand better the competitive inte...

Shoreline wetlands along Lake Ontario are valuable, multi-functional resources that have historically provided large numbers of important ecosystem goods and services. However, alterations to the lake’s natural hydrologic regime have impacted traditional meadow marsh in the wetlands, resulting in competition and colonization by dense and aggressive...

Gas drilling into the Marcellus Shale play has been linked to environmental issues, including potential impacts on wildlife. In 2009, three separate accidents occurred at two gas well sites in central Pennsylvania, USA that resulted in high levels of contaminants in Wallace Mine Fen and a headwater stream that flows through the fen. We collected wa...

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...

Lake Ontario water levels were the highest in recorded history in 2017 and 2019, resulting in significant impacts to shoreline properties and observable (but not previously quantified) changes in coastal wetland vegetation. In this study, we assessed differences in coverage of five plant community guilds (submerged aquatic vegetation, Typha, meadow...

The shoreline wetlands of Lake Ontario are valuable, multi-functional resources that provide a large number of important ecosystem goods and services. However, alterations to the Lake’s natural hydrologic regime has impacted the traditional meadow marsh dominated wetlands, encouraging out-competing and colonization by dense and aggressive Typha ang...

A chronosequence of wetland swales between beach ridges in the Manistique/Thompson embayments of Lake Michigan contains plant communities that differ across the strandplain. We characterized vegetation in 33 swales and compared distribution with previously reported groundwater flow systems. Older swales near a groundwater divide created by the peak...

Trajectories of vegetative change in wetlands can be influenced strongly by shifts in water-table elevation driven by evapotranspiration and spatial-temporal variability in groundwater. The specific dynamics of such interactions are difficult to quantify because of spatial complexities associated with local climate, geomorphology, and underlying ge...

Beach ridges and wetland swales formed in embayments along Great Lakes shorelines during Holocene lake-level changes. Vegetation differences among swales suggested influence from differing groundwater flow systems. We characterized the hydrology across 79 ridge/swale wetlands in the Manistique/Thompson embayments of Lake Michigan using chemical and...

Heavy predation by Mergus merganser (Common Merganser) during severe winters of 2013–2014 and 2014–2015 resulted in substantial reductions of wild Salmo trutta (Brown Trout) in open-water, groundwater-fed reaches of Oatka Creek in western New York State. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation considered the need for habitat manipul...

Water cycles are expected to change globally with predicted climate warming. Yet, predicted shifts in hydrological regimes are rarely incorporated into wetland restoration planning, despite large investments in projects very susceptible to hydrological changes. We assessed potential effects of climate change on previously restored wetlands to ident...

Coastal wetlands of the Laurentian Great Lakes are vital habitats for biota of ecological and economic importance. These habitats are susceptible to water quality impairments driven by runoff from the landscape due to their location along the shoreline. Monitoring of the overall status of biotic and abiotic conditions of coastal wetlands within the...

Plant-to-plant facilitation is important in structuring communities, particularly in ecosystems with high levels of natural disturbance, where a species may ameliorate an environmental stressor, allowing colonization by another species. Increasingly, facilitation is recognized as an important factor in invasion biology. In coastal wetlands, non-nat...

Typha is an iconic wetland plant found worldwide. Hybridization and anthropogenic disturbances have resulted in large increases in Typha abundance in wetland ecosystems throughout North America at a cost to native floral and faunal biodiversity. As demonstrated by three regional case studies, Typha is capable of rapidly colonizing habitats and form...

Traditionally, ecosystem monitoring, conservation, and restoration have been conducted in a piecemeal manner at the local scale without regional landscape context. However, scientifically driven conservation and restoration decisions benefit greatly when they are based on regionally determined benchmarks and goals. Unfortunately, required data sets...

I have taught Wetland Ecology 25 times - 15 as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Michigan and UMDearborn while I worked at the USGS-Great Lakes Science Center in Ann Arbor and 10 in my new life in academia as the Empire Innovation Professor of Wetland Science at SUNY--The College at Brockport in my native western New York State. S...

Exotic species are associated with a variety of impacts on biodiversity, but it is unclear whether impacts of exotic species differ from those of native species with similar growth forms or native species invading disturbed sites. We compared presence and abundance of native and exotic invaders with changes in wetland plant species diversity over a...

Biotic indicators are useful for assessing ecosystem health because the structure of resident communities generally reflects abiotic conditions integrated over time. We used fish data collected over 5 years for 470 Great Lakes coastal wetlands to develop multi-metric indices of biotic integrity (IBI). Sampling and IBI development were stratified by...

Regulation of Lake Ontario water levels since the St. Lawrence Seaway began operation in the early 1960s reduced the range of lake-level fluctuations and resulted in alteration of wetland plant communities, especially invasion of sedge/grass meadow marsh by cattails. A new regulation plan was implemented in January 2017 that seeks to restore some o...

Lake-level regulation alters wetland plant communities and their role in providing faunal habitat. Regulation plans have sometimes been changed to restore ecosystem function; however, few studies have shown the effects of such changes. In 2000, a new plan was implemented for regulation of Rainy Lake and Namakan Reservoir in northern Minnesota, USA....

As a result of water-level regulation, cattails have invaded sedge/grass meadow in all wetlands on Lake Ontario. Even with a change in water-level-regulation to a more natural hydrologic regime, restoration requires methods for active cattail management without the ability to manipulate water depths and without imperiling other vegetation. We condu...

Development of wetland science as a distinct field required consolidation of wetland-related publications in a recognized wetland journal. Growth of the Society of Wetland Scientists was thus tied to developing its own publication outlet. Wetlands debuted as the proceedings of the SWS meeting held in 1981, became a peer-reviewed proceedings in 1982...

Development of wetland science as a distinct field required consolidation of wetland-related publications in a recognized wetland journal. Growth of the Society of Wetland Scientists was thus tied to developing its own publication outlet. Wetlands debuted as the proceedings of the SWS meeting held in 1981, became a peer- reviewed proceedings in 198...

Since European settlement, over 50 % of coastal wetlands have been lost in the Laurentian Great Lakes basin, causing growing concern and increased monitoring by government agencies. For over a decade, monitoring efforts have focused on the development of regional and organism-specific measures. To facilitate collaboration and information sharing be...

Restoration of sedge/grass meadow habitat was implemented on former agricultural lands adjacent to a Lake Ontario drowned-river-mouth tributary at an elevation that historically supports this community type. Four hectares of land were disked in spring and seeded with diverse wetland mixes containing sedges, grasses, and forbs, with additional Calam...

A growing body of literature supports microbial symbiosis as a foundational principle for the competitive success of invasive plant species. Further exploration of the relationships between invasive species and their associated microbiomes, as well as the interactions with the microbiomes of native species, can lead to key new insights into invasiv...

The current temporal and spatial context of water-level change, drivers of change, and possible future scenarios of the Laurentian Great Lakes is controversial. Palaeohydrographs are being constructed from measured subsurface elevations of palaeo-swash zones and modelled ages in strandplains of beach ridges that are preserved in embayments along th...

The use of diurnal water-table fluctuation methods to calculate evapotranspiration (ET) and groundwater flow is of increasing interest in ecohydrological studies. Most studies of this type, however, have been located in riparian wetlands of semi-arid regions where groundwater levels are consistently below topographic surface elevations and precipit...

Fish and plant assemblages in the highly modified Crane Creek coastal wetland complex of Lake Erie were sampled to characterize their spatial and seasonal patterns and to examine the implications of the hydrologic connection of diked wetland units to Lake Erie. Fyke netting captured 52 species and an abundance of fish in the Lake Erie–connected wet...

In the late nineteenth century and twentieth century, there was considerable interest and activity to develop the United States for agricultural, mining, and many other purposes to improve the quality of human life standards and prosperity. Most of the work to support this development was focused along disciplinary lines with little attention focus...

The most detailed Lake Superior paleohydrograph relative to the current outlet near Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario-Michigan, was constructed from four strandplains of beach ridges. This provides a history of water-level, glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), and the active outlet prior to monitoring and regulation. Four relative paleohydrographs that are...

Water-level fluctuations are critical for maintaining the diversity and resultant habitat value of wetland plant communities in the Laurentian Great Lakes. However, activation of the seed bank can also provide an opportunity for invasive species to displace native species, as occurred when common reed, Phragmites australis, expanded across many wet...

The Nipissing phase was the last pre-modern high-water stage of the upper Great Lakes. Represented as either a one- or two-peak highstand, the Nipissing occurred following a long-term lake-level rise. This transgression was primarily an erosional event with only the final stage of the transgression preserved as barriers, spits, and strandplains of...

The effects of water-level regulation on aquatic macrophyte communities were investigated by comparing two regulated lakes in northern Minnesota with a nearby unregulated lake. Natural annual fluctuations of about 1.8 m were replaced with fluctuations of 1.1 m and 2.7 m in the regulated lakes, and the timing of water-level changes was also altered....

A 4-year study identified the effects of road salt contamination on the vegetation of Pinhook Bog after operation of an uncovered salt storage pile adjacent to the bog for 10 years. Nearly all of the endemic plant species (excluding moat species) were absent from the portion of the bog where mean salt concentrations as high as 468 mg/L sodium and 1...

This study examined efforts to promote species establishment and maintain diversity in a Phragmites-dominated wetland where primary control measures were underway. A treatment experiment was performed at Crane Creek, a drowned-river-mouth wetland in Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge along the shore of western Lake Erie. Following initial aerial spray...

Coastal wetland seed banks exposed by low lake levels or through management actions fuel the reestablishment of emergent plant assemblages (i.e., wetland habitat) critical to Great Lakes aquatic biota. This project explored the effectiveness of using portable, water-filled cofferdams as a management tool to promote the natural growth of emergent ve...

Previously described models for predicting the percent of Lake Ontario wetlands that would be occupied by sedge/grass-dominated meadow marsh were used to test four proposed new plans for regulation of lake levels and to make comparisons with the current plan and unregulated conditions. The models for drowned river mouth, barrier beach, open embayme...

Integrated, GIS-based, wetland predictive models were constructed to assist in predicting the responses of wetland plant communities to proposed new water-level regulation plans for Lake Ontario. The modeling exercise consisted of four major components: 1) building individual site wetland geometric models; 2) constructing generalized wetland geomet...

Wetland management in the United States has never been as challenging as in today’s highly modified landscape. Initially, wetland science and management emerged as professions in response to widespread conversion of wetlands to other uses and concerns over negative impacts on wildlife populations, especially migratory birds. Consequently, wetland m...

Wetland science emerged as a distinct discipline in the 1980s. In response, courses addressing various aspects of wetland science and management were developed by universities, government agencies, and private firms. Professional certification of wetland scientists began in the mid-1990s to provide confirmation of the quality of education and exper...

The failure of managed wetlands to provide a broad suite of ecosystem services (e.g., carbon storage, wildlife habitat, ground-water recharge, storm-water retention) valuable to society is primarily the result of a lack of consideration of ecosystem processes that maintain productive wetland ecosystems or physical and social forces that restrict a...

The diversity and resultant habitat value of wetland plant communities in the Laurentian Great Lakes are dependent on water-level fluctuations of varying frequency and amplitude. Conceptual models have described the response of vegetation to alternating high and low lake levels, but few quantitative studies have documented the changes that occur. I...

Photointerpretation studies were conducted to evaluate vegetation changes in wetlands of Lake Ontario and the upper St. Lawrence River associated with regulation of water levels since about 1960. The studies used photographs from 16 sites (four each from drowned river mouth, barrier beach, open embayment, and protected embayment wetlands) and spann...

A five-year study was conducted to identify the effects of road salt intrusion on the water chemistry of Pinhook Bog following operation of an uncovered salt storage pile adjacent to the bog for ten years. A distinct pattern of elevated salt concentrations was observed in the interstitial waters of the surface peat that corresponded to observed alt...

A common break was recognized in four Lake Superior strandplain sequences using geomorphic and sedimentologic characteristics. Strandplains were divided into lakeward and landward sets of beach ridges using aerial photographs and topographic surveys to identify similar surficial features and core data to identify similar subsurface features. Cross-...

Key components of water availability in a hydrologic system4 are the amount of water in storage and the variability of that amount. In the Great Lakes Basin, a vast amount of water is stored in the lakes themselves. Because of the lakes’ size, small changes in water levels cause huge changes in the amount of water in storage. Approximately 5,439 mi...

A vast, ground-water-supported sedge fen in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA was ditched in the early 1900 s in a failed attempt to promote agriculture. Dikes were later constructed to impound seasonal sheet surface flows for waterfowl management. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, which now manages the wetland as part of Seney National Wildlife...

The International Joint Commission has recently completed a five-year study (2000-2005) to review the operation of structures controlling the flows and levels of the Lake Ontario - St. Lawrence River system. In addition to addressing the multitude of stakeholder interests, the regulation plan review also considers environmental sustainability and i...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has a long-standing reputation for providing unbiased scientific leadership and excellence in the field of ground-water hydrology and geological research. This report provides a framework for continuing this scientific leadership by describing six interdisciplinary topics for research opportunities in ground-water...

Advances in the six ground-water science research topics described in this report could greatly improve our ability to forecast ground-water availability to sustain human use and support aquatic ecosystems. These topics do not cover all aspects of ground-water science that the USGS could pursue but were derived from interactions with colleagues int...

A hydrogeomorphic classification scheme for Great Lakes coastal wetlands is presented. The classification is hierarchical and first divides the wetlands into three broad hydrogeomorphic systems, lacustrine, riverine, and barrier-protected, each with unique hydrologic flow characteristics and residence time. These systems are further subdivided into...

Many biological, hydrological, and geological processes are interactively linked in ecosystems. These ecological phenomena normally vary within bounded ranges, but rapid, nonlinear changes to markedly different conditions can be triggered by even small differences if threshold values are exceeded. Intrinsic and extrinsic ecological thresholds can l...

1. Discoloration of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) tape has been used in peatland ecological and hydrological studies as an inexpensive way to monitor changes in water-table depth and reducing conditions. 2. We investigated the relationship between depth of PVC tape discoloration and measured water-table depth at monthly time steps during the growing sea...

This study evaluates the accuracy of optically stimulated luminescence to date well-preserved strandline sequences at Manistique/Thompson bay (Lake Michigan), and Tahquamenon and Grand Traverse Bays (Lake Superior) that span the past ∼4500 yr. The single aliquot regeneration (SAR) method is applied to produce absolute ages for littoral and eolian s...

The wetlands that border Lake Michigan are an extremely important component of the lake ecosystem. Wetlands are considered to be among the most productive and ecologically diverse habitats on earth, with attributes of both upland and aquatic ecosystems. Although wetlands comprise only a small fraction of the total area of Lake Michigan, they provid...

Internal architecture and ages of 71 beach ridges in the Tahquamenon Bay embayment along the southeastern shore of Lake Superior on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan were studied to gen-erate a late Holocene relative lake-level curve. Establishing a long-term framework is important to exam-ine the context of historic events and help predict potential...

Shorelines of the upper Great Lakes include many embayments that contain strandplains of beach ridges. These former shoreline positions of the lakes can be used to determine changes in the elevation of the lakes through time, and they also provide information on the warping of the ground surface that is occurring in the Great Lakes after the weight...

Primary succession of plant communities directed toward a climax is not a typical occurrence in wetlands because these ecological systems are inherently dependent on hydrology, and temporal hydrologic variability often causes reversals or setbacks in succession. Wetlands of the Great Lakes provide good examples for demonstrating the implications of...

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed the restoration of wetlands impacted by a series of drainage ditches and pools located in an extensive undeveloped peatland in the Seney National Wildlife Refuge, Michigan. This study examined the nature and extent of degradation to the Marsh Creek wetlands caused by alteration of natural hydrology by a w...

Interest by land-management and regulatory agencies in using biological indicators to detect wetland degradation, coupled with ongoing use of this approach to assess water quality in streams, led to the desire to develop and evaluate an Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) for wetlands that could be used to categorize the level of degradation. We undert...

Fringing wetlands of the Laurentian Great Lakes are subject to natural processes, such as water-level fluctuation and wave-induced erosion, and to human alterations. In order to evaluate the quality of these wetlands over space and time, biological communities are often examined. Ideally, the groups of organisms selected for these evaluations shoul...

Restoration plans for Metzger Marsh, a coastal wetland on the south shore of western Lake Erie, incorporated a fish-control system designed to restrict access to the wetland by large common carp (Cyprinus carpio). Ingress fish passageways in the structure contain slots into which experimental grates of varying size and shape can be placed to select...

Gauging the impact of manipulative activities, such as rehabilitation or management, on wetlands requires having a notion of the unmanipulated condition as a reference. And understanding of the reference condition requires knowledge of dominant factors influencing ecosystem processes and biological communities. In this paper, we focus on natural ph...

Historical and geospatial data were used to identify the relationships between water levels, wetland vegetation, littoral drift of sediments, and the condition of a protective barrier beach at Metzger Marsh, a coastal wetland in western Lake Erie, to enhance and guide a joint federal and state wetland restoration project. Eleven sets of large-scale...

A long history of human-induced degradation of Great Lakes wetlands has made restoration a necessity, but the practice of wetland restoration is relatively new, especially in large lake systems. Therefore, we compiled tested methods and developed additional potential methods based on scientific understanding of Great Lakes wetland ecosytems to prov...

Freshwater unionid clams in North America have been virtually eliminated from waters that are colonized by zebra mussels. Near total mortality has been reported in western Lake Erie1, 2, 3, 4, but we have now discovered a large population of native clams in a Lake Erie wetland that shows little sign of infestation. Field observations and laboratory...

Comparison of long-term records of local wetland vegetation dynamics with regional, climate-forced terrestrial vegetation changes can be used to differentiate the rates and effects of autogenic successional processes and allogenic environmental change on wetland vegetation dynamics. We studied Holocene plant macrofossil and pollen sequences from Po...