Category: aquatic vegetation

An Unfair War with Aquatic Invasive Species

The Importance of Aquatic Vegetation Abundance Mapping and Long Term Monitoring from a Layman’s Perspective

 

From a layman’s point of view it can be very difficult to understand the importance of lake weeds as they relate to aquatic invasive species (AIS).  I should know . . . I’m a layman.  I started asking questions, and it turns out it’s a bit more complex than I thought.  Sure, I want the Minnesota Lakes I love to be clear with tons of fish, but do we really need these weeds?  Of course we need some “weeds” (“aquatic plants”), and, if you get rid of too many you can throw the entire lake ecology out of balance for years.  When I asked how much is a good amount and how it is being tracked in Minnesota I was disappointed with the answer.  During my time working for the software company Contour Innovations, focusing on automated lake mapping, I’ve had the pleasure of working with some of the most talented aquatic biologists in the Country, both in-house and through our customer base.  I’ve spent the last few years learning the language and attempting to catch on from a neutral, outsider’s perspective.  Slowly, I realized that the complicated topic could be effectively communicated to anyone that cares about and has an interest in water quality . . . which should technically be everyone.

Let’s face it, the DNR has done a great job demonizing invasive species for good reason and with some positive results.  There’s more awareness now and budgets in place to attempt to manage the spread and introduction.  But, eradicating AIS once introduced into a lake is only half the story.  . .
I’ve learned a lot over the last few years but I still had some questions:  Why should our customers really care about the total habitat when Eurasian Water Milfoil has already invaded their lake?  Don’t they just want to know where the Milfoil is so they can get rid of it?  If a monitoring program can’t distinguish between species does it still have a use in aquatic research or management?  I originally thought that identifying where the Milfoil is located is key, but I actually found the opposite to be true.  If we live by the idea that “AIS are bad and should be eliminated at all costs,” wouldn’t the results be easier to obtain? 
The concepts of ecosystem balance are extremely complex but vital.  After early discussions with our biologists it become clear to me that abundance is one of the most important metrics to consider when monitoring water quality and lake health.  This remains true if an invasive species has already been introduced or it’s just knocking on the doorstep.  We need to focus our analysis on total abundance and the overall aquatic habitat instead of speciation as a sole predictor of lake health.  What really matters is knowing if your lake is at risk of the negative impacts from invasive species and if your lake ecology is within certain “healthy” parameters.  A lake’s resilience to invasive species and current water quality regime is going to be a major indicator of lake health and prospects for the future.  It’s also important to quantify your management interventions and determine if they are having their desired effect.  These were difficult questions to answer in the past. 

Invasive species are coming.   We can try to stop it but more likely we’re just delaying it.  The reason these species are thriving is because they’re designed to thrive.  With the right conditions they can easily steal the resources required to grow from other plants, effectively eliminating competition from the lake.  They’re opportunistic and the microscopic amount required for infestation is astonishing.  We should accept this fact and be realistic about what we’re dealing with.  It doesn’t mean we roll over and stop the cleaning stations or citations for failing to drain your bilge, but a proactive management and monitoring plan is a good idea.   

Let’s understand our lake’s resilience and identify if it’s at risk.  Let’s get our resource managers identifying which lakes need close attention and devote our stretched budgets to the ones that need it.  The chips are already stacked against us and without good quantitative data, they’re stacked even further.   With mismanaged resources it becomes a war we can’t win.

At a certain level of productivity, an invasive species will win the war against a diverse ecological aquatic habitat and turn into a lake of a single species.  This isn’t a good thing for any lake ecosystem or water quality.  It’s all about balance and a healthy lake habitat can help keep an infestation in check.  It’s also possible that certain management techniques could push a lake towards a higher risk scenario if decisions were made without quality abundance data.  Understanding the risks of this happening are key in designing a management plan to be proactive instead of reactive.  Identifying hot spots in abundance and potential causes could be more important than identifying where the invasive species exist.  The best thing is that it’s never too early or late to start. 

The entire ecosystem is tied together.   The cumulative effect of lake stressors can lead to the low resilience required for an invasive species to thrive.  Identifying the stressors and dealing with them could prove more valuable than eliminating an invasive species.  Much like a healthy body can deal with the flu virus better than an unhealthy one, a lake with good shorelines, healthy fish communities, and healthy diversity of plant abundance can keep an infestation in check.  In certain conditions, taking plants out of the lake might be a bad decision that could have a negative effect on lake ecology depending on the lake regime and characteristics of the lake.  
In fact, there are ideal targets and optimal or idea habitat levels and conditions.  Our own Ray Valley, a 10 year veteran of the Minnesota DNR, has devoted a majority of his career to habitat monitoring and interactions between plant abundance, fish, lake resilience and relationships to water quality.  His research on ecosystem balance, namely lake resilience, is instrumental in understanding what’s really happening in a lake and when lakes are at risk.  Much of this is actually tied to plant abundance and changes over time.
Through a long term monitoring program it’s possible to identify the red flags.  Plant abundance growing at deeper depths from year to year could show an increase in water clarity allowing more light penetration.  This might be caused by a recent zebra mussel infestation or a shift in the lakes ecology.  Regardless, something as simple as the depth aquatic plants grow tells us a ton about the direction the lake is going.  In another example, unusual increases in plant abundance in specific areas could indicate, among other things, a home with a leaking septic tank on the lake, a change in the landscape, changes in sedimentation, a run-off issue or a bigger problem upstream.  All of these, left unchecked, could cause more problems for the lakes balance and resilience leading to higher risk of negative impacts of an invasive species introduction.   These changes don’t show up in a visual reconnaissance, presence/absence surveys with a rake, or a single map.   But getting these items resolved could be the management technique that keeps an invasive species from dominating a lake habitat in the future and early detection of these problems could prevent an unfair fight against AIS in the future.
Complete dominance of an invasive species is another story but it’s also the exception.  I’ve seen a number of groups continue to dump massive amounts of money into management without quantitative goals or the ability to effectively quantify the whether they are meeting their management expectations.  Maybe we’re not asking the right types of questions or maybe the technology didn’t exist to get the information we need.  No one is at fault yet.  Once the dialog shifts away from hysterical talking points and towards pragmatic management approaches, we’ll start making real strides in getting ahead of AIS and start achieving improvements in our precious lakes.

So where do we start?  With crowd-sourced solutions like ciBioBase.com we can all start getting the volume of data we really need to have this realistic and proactive discussion.  With cloud computing we’ve broadened the base of individuals that can participate allowing passionate home owner groups to take matters into their own hands instead of waiting for an understaffed DNR.   Aquatic plant abundance maps that took a highly trained hydrographer a week or more and to complete can be done by anyone with a boat, a depth finder and GPS, and 20 minutes for computers do the work of processing the collected data.  This is the future of monitoring and lake management.  There are no longer barriers to getting the kind of data we need for identifying the red flags, eliminating stressors and improving lakes across Minnesota and the globe.
So, let’s understand the lakes heartbeat first.  Let’s get a clear picture of the lakes resilience and its current status for optimal health.  Then we move forward to a future with cleaner lakes.

This article represents and aggregation of my thoughts as I’ve journeyed through this industry and tried to learn the ropes.   This is merely an appeal to think differently about our lakes, expectations, and what the future holds.  The future of our most important resource is brightest if we take a step back, think about what we’re doing and where we need to go.
 
Let’s have those realistic and proactive discussions with real data . . .
                                                         -Matt Johnson, CEO, Contour Innovations, LLC

 

CONTOUR INNOVATIONS AND CIBIOBASE

ciBioBase (ciBioBase.com) removes the time and labor required to create aquatic maps! ciBioBase leverages log file formats recorded to SD cards using today’s Lowrance™ brand depth finders and chart plotters. Data you collect while on the water is uploaded to an online account where it is processed by our servers automatically! We rely on automation to make vegetation mapping cost effective by reducing the technical skills, staff, and hours to produce vegetation abundance maps from raw sonar collection. With the human element gone, you get accurate and objective mapping at lightening speeds! The result is a uniform and objective output all over the world!
I’m proud to be a part of this step in the right direction of a positive future for lake management and overall quality of our most precious resource.  We’re shaking things up and this is a time when everyone benefits.  We work as a huge team to define the best uses and features of one of our products, BioBase, to change the lake management industry.  We’re using expert opinions and powerful cloud computing to create amazing contour and vegetation maps and gain important quantitative metrics of lake health.

Our Company has a culture that considers its social responsibility and contribution.  Our sales team is motivated by how they are changing the future of lakes and resources management.  I was most intrigued by what we might be contributing to the future of a resource that means so much to me.  I’m still intrigued!

Aquatic Plant Species Domination – Collaborative Research Using BioBase

Contour Innovations is proud to announce a collaboration among aquatic industry leaders to better understand aquatic species domination and lake ecosystem changes over time.

FIGURE: Left map: sampling points where Eurasian watermilfoil was present (yellow) and absent (X) during a survey on Gibbs Lake, Rock Co. WI (77 acres) in summer 2012.  Points are overlain on a vegetation biovolume “heat” map from passively collected sonar data and processed by ciBioBase.  Red colors represent vegetation that is growing near the surface.  Right map: Eurasian watermilfoil “Dominance” map rendered from both species survey and biovolume data.  Areas that are yellow and red areas where Eurasian watermilfoil is dominating the plant community and growing near or at the surface.

For over a decade, point-intercept survey methodology for aquatic plants has become a standard tool for lake resource managers and researchers.  The standard methodology entails sampling a uniform grid of points on a lake noting presence absence of species at each point with a rake. It is a relatively rapid way of objectively sampling aquatic plant species communities in a repeatable fashion.  However, the methodology’s primary downfall as a standalone method is its insensitivity to abundance of plants (i.e., 1 sampled sprig gets the same weight as a large bed at any one point).  Using passive collection of aquatic plant abundance with acoustics while conducting point-intercept surveys and simple GIS overlay methodology, we are demonstrating how species presence/absence layers can be combined with complementary biovolume (% of water column occupied by vegetation) data to form a more complete survey of both species AND abundance.  Further, using both species and abundance layers, we developed a ‘dominance’ index for each species sampled and demonstrate how dominance of any or all species can be used as an aquatic plant management or lake habitat monitoring tool.  Examples from Eurasian watermilfoil and Hydrilla infested lakes are used, as well as lakes with no known invasive species.   Future applications could utilize other environmental datasets (e.g., climate, land cover & use, water quality, etc.) to model the potential and realized outcome of a host of environmental stressors on the probability that invasive species will come to dominate a water body.

Aquatic biologist Ray Valley commented, “We’re excited about where this research can take us.  Collaboration among experts throughout the US allows us to draw on a wide knowledge base and study ecosystems from a broad geographic range.  As this historical centralized dataset grows over the coming years, continued collaboration will help us understand and forecast true patterns in dominance and ecosystem effects of invasive species introduction.”

If you have interest in participating in this collaboration or have suggestions, please contact Ray Valley at RayV@ContourInnovations.com

Participating Groups Currently Include:

Contour Innovations LLC, Minneapolis MN
University of Florida Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants, Gainesville, FL
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Bureau of Science Services, Madison, WI
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Research Unit
North Carolina State University, Department of Crop Science, Raleigh NC

We’ll keep you updated along the way!  Centralization is powerful stuff when it comes to aquatic plant research!

Point-Intercept on Steroids

Who would’ve known that an obscure technical report describing a sampling methodology would become a classic in the world of Aquatic Plant Management and be adopted as a standard by lake service providers and government agencies?  Although it was old hat in the world of terrestrial Botany and Forest Ecology, Dr. John Madsen appeared to be the first to make point-intercept a standard tool for aquatic ecologists and lake managers with his Army Corps of Engineers Technical Note No MI-02 published in 1999 entitled “Point Intercept and Line Intercept Methods for Aquatic Plant Management.”

Briefly summarized, point-intercept methodology entails creating a grid of GPS points on a waterbody and traveling to those points and sampling the aquatic plants in those areas typically by throwing a double-headed rake and pulling up whatever it catches (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Contour Innovations Aquatic Biologists Jesse Amo (back) and Ray Valley (front) conduct a point-intercept vegetation survey while logging acoustic data on Orchard Lake, Dakota Co. MN.

The simplest and most objective application of the method is to simply record the presence of each species on the rake.  This does not lend much insight into how abundant each species is at each point and a mat of surface-growing vegetation gets the same weight as a lonely sprig (Figure 2).  To address this short-coming, several adaptations to the method have been made by various practitioners including ranking the abundance of different species on the rake.  Although some may argue it’s a “better than nothing” measure of relative abundance, I would argue, not much.  There is no straightforward way to objectively rank the abundance of 5 different species in a gob of plant matter on a rake like seen in Figure 1.  As a consequence, results are not repeatable and four different investigators could produce four different results for the same sample.  Further a relative ranking lends little biological information about the architectural structure or canopy height of aquatic plants.

Figure 2. Conceptual figure of a point-intercept sampling point in two contrasting environments.  In the pure application of the method, if the rake intercepts the diminutive sprig in panel B, it would be given the same weight as the thick mat in panel A.
Biological processes, water quality, physical habitat and recreational conditions all hinge on the state of aquatic plant ABUNDANCE in a waterbody.  As I have described above, point-intercept or any subjective adaptation is not well suited to address aquatic plant abundance concerns.  Nevertheless, point-intercept has many strengths and one shouldn’t throw the “baby out with the bath water.”  Rather, ciBioBase offers a powerful and efficient way of getting more out of your point-intercept species sampling.
To add biovolume to your point-intercept surveys all you need is a Lowrance HDS depth finder, a $10 SD card from your favorite electronic retailer, and a subscription to ciBioBase (single lake and unlimited pricing are available).  No additional set up is necessary.  No technical mapping experience needed.  Just hit record, and jump from point to point like you’ve done in the past.  The HDS unit will passively record the GPS signal and acoustics the entire time.
After you return from the field, upload the data to ciBioBase, get a cup of coffee and catch up on some email.  Approximately 30-min to an hour later, one of the new emails in your inbox will be an alert from ciBioBase informing you that your plant abundance and bathymetric map is processed and ready for viewing.
Not only does passively logging sonar data while conducting species surveys require no additional work, but you sample important interim areas between points and get understanding of the TRUE coverage of plants (not just the frequency of plants sampled with your rake).
Unleashing the power of Point-intercept by using ciBioBase
Although ciBioBase comes with many analytical tools, its full potential to inform aquatic plant management is realized when the data is exported out of ciBioBase and into GIS for analysis with other data layers (Figure 3).
Figure 3. ciBioBase users have the option to export processed point data along their GPS track (Point) or  the uniform grid created by kriging interpolation (Grid).  Users can then import these files into GIS for further analysis with their point-intercept data layers.
By converting the ciBioBase grid text file into a Raster grid and using a “point on raster” analysis utility available both in ESRI’s ArcGIS and Quantum GIS (an open source GIS program), users can grab the biovolume value for a point-intercept sampling point (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Example of biovolume data (grid of blues, purples, and reds with increasing density or biovolume getting a “hotter” color) imported into GIS and overlain with point-intercept species data (yellow points are northern watermilfoil – a native stand-in for its unwelcome foreign cousin Eurasian watermilfoil).  The Point Sampling Tool in Quantum will extract grid values from one raster layer and attach them to a different point-layer.
In the hypothetical example in Figure 4, anywhere where milfoil is present we can see how dense the vegetation growth was at the sampled point and around it.  By using the Point Sampling Tool in Quantum that captures the biovolume grid cell value for each surveyed point, we found that for all milfoil points, average biovolume was 65% (with many points at 100% or surface growing).  For all other vegetated points, biovolume was only 45% with many less 100% values.
How can information on species abundance lead to better management decisions than presence alone?  It is generally unrealistic to eradicate most invasive species, and often a more realistic objective is to manage the abundance to an acceptable level.   Perhaps the surface growing tendency of milfoil (i.e., biovolume = 100%) is the primary management concern and that reducing “biovolume” to say, 45% with much less surface growth like other native plant species, would be a desirable result.   Presence/absence data from point-intercept surveys alone will not inform whether plant abundance is being managed within desirable levels.
Case Study: Whole-Lake Treatments of Fluridone with Both PI and Biovolume data
Valley et al. (2006) describe results of whole-lake applications of the herbicide fluridone to a nutrient-rich Minnesota Lake (Schutz Lake, Carver Co. MN).  As part of the evaluation, hydroacoustic surveys of vegetation biovolume were conducted before and after the treatments in addition to point-intercept species surveys.
The treatments reduced Eurasian watermilfoil below detection levels, but also directly or indirectly played a role in reducing the other dominant native species in the lake, coontail.  In fact, almost all submersed vegetation disappeared 1-2 years following the treatment; however, one would never get that indication by solely looking at the point-intercept statistics (Figure 5).  

Figure 5. Mean whole-lake percent vegetation biovolume from hydroacoustic surveys (bars) in Schutz Lake, Carver Co. MN from Valley et al. 2006.  Percent frequency of occurrence of all vegetation from point-intercept surveys conducted at the same time (numbers above bars).
What had occurred was a situation that went from Figure 1A to Figure 1B.  To a rake, these environments are the same, to a lake manager and concerned citizen, they are strikingly different.  Evaluating results with Point-intercept frequency sampling alone can mask unintended harm to water quality and lake resilience.
In the 2000’s, point-intercept methods gave resource managers an objective and rapid species assessment tool.  Now, ciBioBase adds a critical third dimension to these surveys with no additional effort or training. By implementing ciBioBase as a part of standard aquatic plant assessments, resource managers and citizens will be better informed about the true state of vegetation growth in a lake and how it’s changing as a result of environmental change and our management responses.

References
Madsen, J. D. 1999. Point Intercept and Line Intercept Methods for Aquatic Plant Management. APCRP Technical Notes Collection ERDC/TN APCRP-MI-02.
Valley, R. D., W. Crowell, C. H. Welling, and N. Proulx. 2006. Effects of a low-dose fluridone treatment on submersed aquatic vegetation in a eutrophic Minnesota lake dominated by Eurasian watermilfoil and coontail. Journal of Aquatic Plant Management 44:19–25.

Paradise Lake Improvement Board (MI)

Contour Innovations has recently adapted the ciBioBase platform and pricing options to support the mapping initiatives of local government units, home owner associations, and improvement boards.  One of the most recent additions to this project has been the Paradise Improvement Board in Carp Lake, MI (Lower Peninsula) and we’re excited about it!*

The Paradise Lake Improvement Board (paradiselakeimprovementboard.com), through crowd sourcing and citizen science concepts, can now quickly determine the location and abundance of aquatic vegetation for management interventions and quantitative evaluation of the effectiveness of those techniques.   

There’s no technical expertise required!  Our biologists walked the volunteers of the PLIB through a demo account to demonstrate the key features for success with ciBioBase and discuss the recommended settings and collection techniques.    

 
 It’s this simple

Led by board member Catherine Freebairn, the PLIB purchased 2 Lowrance™ HDS units that will be set up as portable units for the lake group and an unlimited upload subscription to ciBioBase.com.  These units will be used to map Paradise Lake during dedicated mapping time as well as during pleasure cruises with passive collection.  With each minute on the water, the PLIB volunteers will be collecting vital statistics on aquatic vegetation, bathymetry, water temps, water volumes, and water clarity, all by hitting “log sonar” on their new HDS sonar units.  All of this data will be stored in their private online account. 
Aquatic biologist Ray Valley commented, “Protecting our lakes demands understanding of what lies beneath the surface and how its changing as a result of environmental changes and our responses to them.”
Using the innovative ciBioBase System, the PLIB has started building a historical database of their aquatic environment to monitor vegetation abundance and other important water quality characteristics over time.   They can now quickly determine the location and abundance of submerged aquatic vegetation for management interventions and quantitative evaluations of effectiveness of those techniques.  This database is the catalyst for efficient management today and in the future.  By gathering  this data each time someone is on the lake, the Board can crowd source the mapping effort and share information with their service providers for collaborative and objective decision making.  

“The PLIB has always shown a substantial passion for their lake and we feel that their early adoption of our powerful technology will be rewarded on many fronts,” said Contour Innovations’ CEO Matt Johnson.  “It’s very easy to work with groups like the PLIB who see the big picture in lake management and monitoring and want to see results.  They develop close relationships with their service providers and home owners to work hand-in-hand in understanding the best opportunities to reach their goals.  This is the first time that groups like this can use acoustics for accurate vegetation mapping and ciBioBase fits perfectly within their strategy,” he added.  

The PLIB will be working with their service providers (who will also have access to uploads and maps) to make important management decisions, monitor changes, and objectively evaluate if management interventions are having their desired effects.  With the support of all involved, including Contour Innovations’ own aquatic biologists, the future looks bright for Paradise Lake and anyone that enjoys all it has to offer!
 An Example of a Lake Mapped with ciBioBase
 Aquatic Vegetation Displayed in % BV (water column occupied by plants)

If you’re interested in finding out more about ciBioBase and how it can help your association or improvement district, please contact us and we’d be happy to set up a person demo for you with one of our biologists.  Please contact Jesse Amo for additional details:  JesseA@ContuourInnovations.com

For more information on the Paradise Lake Improvement Board please check out their website at paradiselakeimprovementboard.com.

*Contour Innovations does not release personal information about our customers.  We obtained permission from the PLIB before this media release.

Precision Management-Time to Quantify

Lake Harriet Monitoring Before and After Harvester. . .

A multitude of factors impact the health of aquatic systems creating a need to monitor lakes’ “vital signs”.  In the same way it is expected that a medical doctor will do more than glance at a patient and say: “you look fine” the same is needed for our lakes.  A number of different vital signs are necessary to give a precise assessment of human health and our aquatic systems are no different, they are complex biological systems.  ciBioBase provides many “unchecked” parameters that have not been assessed until now in an automated processing system.  Two trips on a small section of Lake Harriet in Minneapolis collecting “vital signs data” have already told a story about big changes in the aquatic community.  What more can we learn about this complex ecosystem by simply monitoring with ciBioBase on an ongoing basis?
A data collection trip with ciBioBase in late June on Lake Harriet revealed what you might expect from an unseasonably warm spring in a lake infested with Eurasian watermilfoil(EWM).  Aquatic plant growth was several weeks ahead of schedule with EWM dominating the sample area on north shore and already being matted on the surface.  The majority of near-shore areas sampled exhibited near 100 % EWM biovolume (% water column occupied).  In fact, in the far east and west reaches of the sample area our survey-boat was skirting matted EWM too dense to navigate through.  Wherever vegetation occurred (percent area coverage) on the June 18th survey the biovolume average was very high, due to it being composed primarily of EWM (average of 54.4%).  
BEFORE:
 

In late August a comparison trip was completed, navigating the same transect line from the June trip using ciBioBase following the Lowrance HDS track overlay on the unit.  A striking feature noticed shortly after getting on the water was…..Where was all the topped-out vegetation?  The transect sampled on June 18th skirted topped-out EWM, but on August 22nd no topped-out vegetation occurred in the same sampling area.  This excerpt from the Star Tribune written by Bill McAuliffe on June 10th explains: “The Minneapolis Park Board’s milfoil harvest began with a single mower.  . The harvesting each year generally requires at least two passes through each lake. Cedar Lake was scheduled for mowing Friday. After that, Lake Harriet is on the schedule.” (View the article by clicking here).  That would explain the drop in average biovolume in vegetated areas from 54.4% to 16% and overall average biovolume for the entire sampled area from 28.3 to 5.1%.

AFTER:
*Automated Reports Generated for Each Trip Uploaded to ciBioBase

ciBioBase not only displays that the average biovolume in vegetated areas for this study site dropped from 54.4% to 16% and overall average biovolume for the entire sampled area from 28.3 to 5.1%, but it also outlines vegetation distribution.  Spatial characteristics such as the shift from about 30% of the sampled area having a biovolume of  >80% to 0.34% of the sampled area having a biovolume >80% after the EWM harvest are also a part of the ciBioBase data output.

ciBioBase has enabled users to precisely compare changes in biovolume and spatial distribution of vegetation; pinpointing changes and quantifying their outputs.  This means precision monitoring and management using quantifiable target goals while leveraging objective “before and after” monitoring data that is easily collected, processed, and viewed with the ciBioBase system.

Knowing precisely “where and how much” are critical components to knowing if management plans are effective.  Another excerpt from Bill McAuliffe’s Star Tribune article states: “The Lake Minnetonka Conservation District launched its two mowers Thursday, about on schedule because it uses school teachers to run them, said Judd Harper, who manages the district’s milfoil removal. But weed growth on the lake is “a lot worse than it was last year,” Harper said.”  ciBioBase provides numbers behind “a lot worse”.

Using the ciBioBase system and historical database comparison, it is now possible to quantitatively identify year to year and other temporal trends.  Managers can now implement corresponding management based on sound scientific data and quantitative metrics.  ciBioBase is the key to precision management!

TRIP COMPARE FEATURE IN CIBIOBASE

* %BV (% of the water column filled with plants)
ANOTHER SHOT OF BAIT FISH PICKED UP BY STRUCTURE SCAN

 

ABOUT CIBIOBASE:

ciBioBase removes the time and labor required to create aquatic maps! The System was engineered to provide automated cloud based bathymetric and aquatic vegetation mapping and historical trend tools for aquatic habitat analysis. ciBioBase leverages log file formats recorded to SD cards using today’s Lowrance™ brand depth finders and chart plotters. Data you collect while on the water is uploaded to an online account where it is processed by our servers automatically! We rely on automation to make vegetation mapping cost effective by reducing the technical skills, staff, and hours to produce vegetation abundance maps from raw sonar collection. With the human element gone, you get accurate and objective mapping at lightening speeds! The result is a uniform and objective output all over the world!

What’s this Kriging Business?!

Thanks to advances in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) computing technology, evaluating changes to lake bottoms over time has gotten much easier!  Prior to GIS, biologists and surveyors would go through great pains to ensure that repeated data collection in study areas of interest would precisely fall on the same area or transect.  If this condition was not met, data would have to be thrown out because biologists could never be sure that the difference seen between two time periods was real, an artifact of sampling a different area, or a product of sampling in a different way.  Consequently, efforts from multiple groups collecting similar data in the same system but in a slightly different way could not be leveraged.  This is an unfortunate missed opportunity that BioBase uniquely handles.

First, BioBase uniformly interprets acoustic signals and the output is the same regardless of the skill level of the individual collecting the data.  Second, BioBase employs kriging to create a statistically robust uniform map output that figuratively turns Survey 1 by Bob Smith from an orange into an apple and Survey 2 by Amy Johnson in the same area from a grapefruit into an apple.  This is unique to kriging which is a geostatistical procedure.  All other standard interpolation methods are simply 3D representations of the input data and each map will look different depending on the precise location of your survey points.  Only kriging turns different fruits into apples.

Continue reading “What’s this Kriging Business?!”

Lake Mapping and 800 kHz DownScan

BioBase Now Offering 800 kHz DownScan in its dynamic Trip Replay feature.

 

Trip Replay is taking a leap forward with the new option to view your data using the 800 kHz DownScan option when recording with the StructureScan™ add-on.  Anyone that has been uploading data gathered with StructureScan™, by logging all channels, can now view past and future trips with this new feature.

You may have seen our earlier posts about the BioBase Trip Relay feature.  Your raw data collection is automatically processed by our powerful cloud servers and fully mapped with kriging algorithms and other geo-statistical considerations. Once processed, you can then replay the entire trip, watch your boat travel along your transects, and ground truth the % BV heat map with the water column cross section (on the right side of the image above).   This feature allows our customers to verify every trip output for accuracy and provide objective evidence for anyone that questions your aquatic vegetation maps!

The power and accuracy of the Lowrance™ HDS StructureScan™ allows us to offer a new and amazing cross-section view (DownScan) of the water column for each trip in the Trip Replay feature.  As you can see from the images below, this feature provides amazing views of bottom and vegetation.  It is even possible to notice changes in vegetation types or habitat cover type under your boat.  With our waypoint feature, you can identify vegetation transition zones and areas of interest for typing and delineation.

 

Please let us know if you would like to add StructureScan™ to your current data collection hardware.  Although not mandatory for using BioBase, this option can be added to any HDS™ system at any time for great views underwater.  For details on using or recording StructureScan™ please request a copy of our Standard Operating Procedures.

Another great feature added to the powerful BioBase System.

ABOUT BIOBASE

BioBase was engineered to provide automated cloud based GIS, aquatic vegetation mapping and historical trend tools for aquatic habitat analysis.  BioBase leverages log file formats recorded to SD cards using today’s Lowrance™ brand depth finders and chart plotters.  Data you collect while on the water is uploaded to an online account where it is processed by our servers automatically.   We rely on automation to make vegetation mapping cost effective by reducing the technical skills, staff, and hours to produce vegetation abundance maps from raw sonar collection. With the human element gone, you get accurate and objective mapping at lightening speeds!

Check out more anytime at www.BioBaseMaps.com and on our BioBase BLOG

Crowd Sourcing Lake Mapping

Natural Resource Managers and Climatologists have long recognized the critical importance of observer networks and volunteer citizen monitoring.   With citizen monitoring networks, Managers and Scientists acquire useful data for making more informed predictions and management decisions, while involved citizens gain an ownership stake in building the knowledgebase about the condition of ecosystems and the climate.

Citizen protocols for water quality (e.g., Secchi clarity) and meteorology (e.g., rainfall) data collection are largely objective and are becoming increasingly standardized throughout the nation.  As a result, comprehensive datasets are being merged at large geographic scales to assess the current status and trajectory of water resource and climate conditions.  Despite well-intentioned citizen programs to map and monitor aquatic plants in several US states, most are subjective and non-standardized.  Consequently, results will differ across surveyors, systems, and geographic regions.  This strongly limits the power and usefulness of data collected from these programs.   This is unfortunate because of the importance of aquatic plants for fish habitat and water clarity, and the vulnerability of lakes to invasive aquatic plants.

Contour Innovations has addressed this issue with ciBioBase and is poised to revolutionize citizen aquatic plant monitoring.

Objective data collection and analysis

Few others cover more water than citizens living on lakes.  Why not capture information about bottom conditions while on a pleasure cruise or fishing?  With only a modicum of planning, the lake could be divvied up among users to ensure consistent and uniform coverage.  By loading in a $10 SD card into the slot on a Lowrance HDS unit and hitting record while driving over areas of interest, lake citizens are well on their way to collecting important information on aquatic plant growth.  After a trip, citizens upload the recorded files to ciBioBase’s cloud-based servers which will trigger algorithms to automatically analyze bottom and plant signals, map the output and match it up with your sonar viewer (Figure 1).  Pretty maps? Absolutely! But also, objective statistical reports that summarize the plant growth conditions (e.g., percent cover, biovolume; Figure 2).  By sampling the same area over time, citizens can objectively monitor change as environmental conditions change.  Further, these efforts will provide objective benchmarks by which to evaluate watershed, shoreline, and in-lake management efforts. 
Figure 1. Automated mapping of bottom and vegetation signals matched up a high resolution DownScan sonar trip replay. 
Figure 2. Excerpt from ciBioBase automated statistical summary report.


Data that most closely corresponds to water quality, fish habitat, and nuisance conditions


Prior to ciBioBase, lake citizens, service providers, and natural resource agencies had little choice but to express plant growth in the lake as “abundant” or “sparse” with sophistication ranging up to digitally drawn maps around the outside of plant beds that they could see from looking over the side of the boat or from an aerial photo.  Anything that could not be seen with the naked eye or from an aerial photograph was ignored.  Quantification was limited to what could be pulled up with a rake and expressed as a presence/absence  metric of frequency of occurrence.
From a water quality and fish habitat perspective, these methods have left the fishery and water resource manager, lakeshore owner, and angler wanting.  Traditional plant assessment methods as described would give the same value to the strikingly contrasting environments depicted in Figure 3).  In the panel on the left, plants only occupy approximately 60% of the water column.  There are adequate hiding places for prey and room for predators to swim around in search of prey.  Plants are adequate to anchor sediments and prevent stirring of sediments that can make the lake murky.  Last but not least, a boat can easily pass through without disturbing the habitat.  Contrast this with the panel on the right.  Although the visual delineation or rake throw prescribed by traditionalists would give the same information on density as the panel on the left, fish habitat and water recreation conditions are strikingly different between the two environments.  In this simulated invasive aquatic plant community (e.g., Eurasian watermilfoil or Hydrilla) without any edge, predatory fish have difficulty finding prey, boat propellers are stopped in their tracks and outboard impellers imperiled!  Essentially, the differences described between the environments in Figure 3 can be summarized in the ciBioBase biovolume maps and statistical outputs.  Ask your service provider or local water resource manager how they measure aquatic plant growth conditions in your favorite lake and evaluate whether they stack up to what ciBioBase provides.
Figure 3.  Contrasting aquatic plant environments that are often represented equally in traditional assessment methods.  On the left is growth that typifies a diverse, native aquatic plant community as opposed to topped-out growth that typifies invasive plant communities.  By mapping biovolume (percent of water column occupied by vegetaton), ciBioBase distinguishes the differences between these plant communities.
Centralized database – Apples to Apples

All data uploaded to ciBioBase are processed uniformly in a centralized database and made available to subscribers in a private organizational account.  Data from Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota can be compared with data from East Lake Tohopekaliga in Florida or data from Esthwaite Water in the UK and comparisons will be apples to apples.  The centralization feature of ciBioBase comes with these tangible benefits as well as intangible ones like fostering greater collaboration between groups interested in aquatic resource conservation.
Merged uniform outputs from multiple surveyors

A new buzzword has been entering the vernacular of natural resource managers called “precision conservation” brought on by advances in aerial photography, lasers (LiDAR), automated sensors, and greater computing power.  We can now identify miniscule areas on the landscape that are sources of runoff and pollution and strategically target those areas to install “Best Management Practices” or BMP’s like rain gardens or grit chambers.  However, thus far the dialog surrounding precision conservation has largely been terrestrial.  ciBioBase is bringing precision conservation to lakes through its merge trips function (Figure 4).
As ciBioBase account managers our users can compile trips from subscribers within their  organization to create a highly precise map of bottom and vegetation (Figure 4).  This division of labor describes the essence of this blog’s title whereby the collective efforts or intelligence of the many are more powerful than any one individual.  No one person is willing or able to track how the lake is changing from day to day as runoff from an increasingly common 4-in rain comes streaming (literally) in, but a dozen active citizens might.  The result is a near real-time data feed on changes in lake conditions that will greatly inform how the lake responds to environmental change, where to target conservation efforts, and whether implemented management policies are producing their desired effects.
Figure 4. Multiple citizens in the same organization can work together by merging trips, thereby creating the most accurate bottom and plant map on the face of the planet!

Aquatic Plant Abundance Mapping and Resilience!

Merriam-Webster Defines resilience as an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.  Eminent University of Wisconsin-Madison Ecologist Dr. Steve Carpenter further adds that resilience is the ability for a system to withstand a “shock” without losing its basic functions, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msiIV5NdLVs. 

Resilience is a relatively easy concept to understand, but it can be difficult to measure in lakes without monitoring subtle changes over time.  This stresses the importance of long-term monitoring and being on guard for new changes to water quality, aquatic plants, and fish.  Volunteer networks and agencies across the country are making great strides in monitoring water quality by dropping a disk in the water and scooping up some water and sending it to a lab for analysis.  In essence, taking the lake’s “blood” sample.  Indeed, water quality samples can be very telling.  But what is happening to the rest of the lake “body”?  How is it changing in relation to its liquid diet of runoff or medication to treat invasive species?  Unfortunately, until now, natural resource agencies, lake managers, and volunteers have not had the capabilities to objectively and efficiently assess these changes without time-intensive, coarse surveys of vegetation cover.

Your body’s immune system is the engine of resilience.  When your immune system becomes compromised, you become vulnerable to a wide range of ailments that may not be a threat to someone with a healthy immune system.  The same goes for lakes.  In the glaciated region of the Upper Midwestern US and Canada, healthy lakes are those that have intact watersheds where the hydrologic cycle is in balance.  Without going into great depth, keeping water where it falls (or at least slowing it down), goes a long way in keeping the hydrologic cycle in balance.  Healthy glacial lakes also have clear water, a diverse assemblage of native aquatic plants, and balanced fish communities.  When humans or the environment alter any one of these components, the lake must adjust in order to compensate for those alterations and remain in a healthy state.  The ability of the lake to do so is this concept of resilience (Figure 1).

Figure 1.  Conceptual diagram of a resilient system.  The height of the slope and the deepness of the valley are the compensatory mechanisms that bring a lake back to some resilient baseline condition after a short-term “shock” like a flood or a temporary septic failure.  Lakes with forested watersheds, clear water, native aquatic plants, and balanced fish communities are typically in this condition.

Slowly, as more curb and gutter goes in, green lawns replace native grasses, personal swimming beaches replace marshes, fish are overharvested or overstocked, or invasive species are introduced, the lake slowly loses its ability to compensate (Figure 2).  All of a sudden you hear “I’ve never seen that before” become more common when people describe a phenomenon on the lake that well, they’ve never seen before.   You may start to observe more algae blooms, more attached algae on rocks and plants, plants growing where they’ve never grown before, invasive species taking hold and thriving.  This is an example of the lake losing resilience and succumbing to the vagaries of the environment.  Under these circumstances, the lake can’t compensate anymore and you never know what you will see from year to year.  With no baseline, objective assessment of aquatic plant abundance and no monitoring of change in abundance and cover from year to year, it makes it even harder to know how much the lake has actually changed and what you need to try to get back to with implemented best management practices .

Figure 2.  An example of the consequences of the cumulative impacts of environmental and human stressors on lake resilience.  As lakes become more impacted by various watershed and in lake practices and invasive species, resilience is slowly worn away.  The valley becomes more shallow and a new “domain” enters the picture.  Lake conditions slosh around from one state to the next depending on the vagaries of weather and other disturbances.  Not knowing to expect from one year to the next becomes the norm.

A demonstration of the difference between a resilient lake and one that is losing resilience can be found in a paper published by Valley and Drake in Aquatic Botany in 2007 entitled “What does resilience of a clear-water state in lakes mean for the spatial heterogeneity of submersed macrophyte biovolume?”  Valley and Drake found very consistent patterns of vegetation growth from one sampling period to the next over three years in a clear lake (Square Lake, Washington Co. MN USA; Figure 3).  Each survey in Figure 3 took two days to survey and another week to make these plots.  Not including time on the water, ciBioBase produces these same plots in an hour.
 

Figure 3.  Submerged aquatic plant biovolume (% of water column inhabited by plants) as a function of depth in Square Lake, Washington Co., MN USA.  Notice the consistency of the pattern of vegetation growth from one time period to the next (study took place for 3 years from 2002-2004; Valley and Drake 2007).  Water clarity in Square Lake is high with diverse aquatic plants.

In contrast, patterns of vegetation growth were quite variable in a moderately turbid lake with abundant Eurasian watermilfoil; West Auburn Lake, Carver Co. MN USA; Figure 4).  For example, in summer 2003, a bloom of attached algae formed on Eurasian watermilfoil stems and effectively weighed down the stems and prevented them from reaching the surface.  This bloom was unique to 2003 and was not observed at any other time during the study.

Figure 4.  Plant growth as a function of depth in a moderately turbid Minnesota Lake with abundant Eurasian watermilfoil (West Auburn Lake, Carver Co. MN USA; Valley and Drake 2007).  Plants grew shallower and more variable in this more disturbed lake. 

If stressors continue unabated, then the lake can “tip” into a new, highly resilient domain of poor health (Figure 5).  The feedback mechanisms that used to keep the lake in a healthy state have now switched to new feedback mechanisms that are keeping it in an unhealthy state.  Algae begets more algae, carp beget more carp, stunted bluegill beget more stunted bluegill, if invasive plants are lucky enough to grow, they beget more invasive plants.  Getting the lake back to the original state is nearly impossible at this point.  It’s like Sisyphus rolling the rock uphill only to have it roll right back down again!  Although controversial, at some point, citizens, regulators, and lake managers need to start rethinking expectations and adapting management approaches in highly degraded systems.  Rather than trying to restore a lake to a Pre-European settlement condition through expensive, risky, and Draconian measures, it may be more reasonable to ask: “How can we have good enough water quality to support naturally reproducing stocks of game fish?”  “Can we manage invasive plants in a way that maintains fish habitat AND recreational opportunities?”  After the wailing and gnashing of teeth subsides and some agreement is reached on objectives and management strategies, then it becomes essential to determine whether implemented management practices are having their desired effect.  It doesn’t take two weeks and $10’s of thousands of dollars to do a vegetation survey.  Volunteers can do it, lake consultants can do it, state agencies can do it and they’ll all do it the same objective way with ciBioBase and they can all work together!

Figure 5.  Example of a lake that has flipped into a degraded regime regulated by new feedback mechanisms that keep it in the degraded state. 

The Upshot

Resilience is an easy concept to understand on a basic level, but hard to measure in lakes and changes slowly over time.  This stresses the importance of long-term monitoring and being on guard for those things “you’ve never seen before.”  Uploading data to ciBioBase every time you are on the water gives an objective and quantitative snapshot of the current conditions in your lake of interest.  Be watchful for anomalies in monitored areas.  Vegetation growth should follow a relatively predictable pattern from year to year and if it doesn’t, that may be the first indication that the lake is losing resilience and precautionary conservation measures should be taken.  Conservation measures may include better onsite storm water infiltration (e.g., rain gardens, nearshore vegetation buffers), maintaining a modest amount of aquatic plant growth in the lake, maintaining a balanced fish community in terms of species, size, and abundance.  These efforts will go a long way in protecting the long-term integrity of our beloved lakes!

Suggested Readings:

Carpenter, S.R., 2003. Regime shifts in lake ecosystems: pattern and variation. In: Excellence in Ecology, vol. 15, Ecology Institute Oldendorf/Luhe, Germany.

Scheffer, M., 1998. Ecology of Shallow Lakes. Chapman and Hall, London.

Valley, R.D. and M.T. Drake 2007.  What does resilience of a clear-water state in lakes mean for the spatial heterogeneity of submersed macrophyte biovolume? Aquatic Botany 87: 307-319.


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