In this study, temporal and spatial variability of ice cover in the Great Lakes are investigated using historical satellite measurements from 1973 to 2010. The seasonal cycle of ice cover was constructed for all the lakes, including Lake St. Clair. A unique feature found in the seasonal cycle is that the standard deviations (i.e., variability) of ice cover are larger than the climatological mea...

Numbers of wintering sea ducks, including buffleheads (Bucephala albeola; BUFF), common goldeneyes (Bucephala clangula; COGO), and long-tailed ducks (Clangula hyemalis; LTDU), increased substantially at Lake Ontario after Dreissenid mussels (Dreissena bugensis and D. polymorpha) colonized the Great Lakes. Invertebrates, including Dreissenid mussels, are major diving duck prey items that can tra...

Hamilton Harbour, a heavily urbanized and polluted embayment, has been selected for environmental remedy by an International Joint Commission. Ecosystem restoration efforts, however, require an understanding of harbour water balance and in particular the influence of recently enhanced exchange with the more dilute waters of Lake Ontario via the Burlington Canal. Here we provide a 6000-year quan...

1 Population Studies Centre, Department of Sociology, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada 2 Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada 3 Department of Family and Consumer Studies and Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA 4 Interdisciplinary Research Group on Demography and Genetic Epidemiology, University of...

R. C. LATHROP,* , † B. M. JOHNSON,‡ T. B. JOHNSON,§ M. T. VOGELSANG,* S . R. CARPENTER,† T. R. HRABIK,† J . F . KITCHELL,† J . J . MAGNUSON,† L. G. RUDSTAM– and R. S . STEWART* *Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Madison, WI, USA †Center for Limnology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA ‡Department of Fishery and Wildlife Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, ...

Although drumlins and other subglacial bedforms are well-studied features, controls on their formation and morphometry have remained elusive. Of current interest is the hypothesis that elongate bedforms (length:width ratios]/10) indicate fast ice flow, and perhaps the location of past ice streams. This hypothesis is explored by analysing drumlins from the New York State drumlin field. A subset ...

Understanding the habitat requirements of salmonids in streams is an important component of fisheries management. We examined the summer and autumn habitat use of yearling Rainbow Trout Oncorhynchus mykiss in relation to available habitat in two streams in the Lake Ontario watershed. Little interstream variation in trout habitat use was observed; the variation that did occur was largely due to ...

Sedimentary biogenic silica (BSi) accumulation was used in conjunction with a hypothetical model of BSi accumulation to show that BSi is a sensitive proxy for low-level phosphorus enrichment in the Great Lakes. We hypothesize that historic nutrient-driven changes in diatom production altered silica biogeochemistry and induced biologically mediated silica depletion (BMSD) and that a record of th...

Perchlorate is a persistent and mobile contaminant in the environment with both natural and anthropogenic sources. Stable isotope ratios of oxygen (δ(18)O, Δ(17)O) and chlorine (δ(37)Cl) along with the abundance of the radioactive isotope (36)Cl were used to trace perchlorate sources and behavior in the Laurentian Great Lakes. These lakes were selected for study as a likely repository of recent...