Michigan Nature Monday: Floodplain Forests

In southern Lower Michigan, the populated landscapes of farms, homes, and towns create predictable, right-angle patterns of human settlement when viewed from above.  But winding across and through those straight-line grids, meandering corridors trace the paths of streams and rivers.

These corridors often harbor something really important, a dynamic natural community known as a floodplain forest. Floodplain forests are a vital part of Michigan’s natural heritage. Periodic flooding, scouring, erosion and sediment deposition follow the rise and fall of water levels creating diverse microhabitats that are used by a variety of wildlife.

Land meets water in a floodplain forest. When that stream or river tops its banks, it reshapes the bottom lands with tree falls, migrating river channels, new sediment deposits or erosional scour. These actions create fluvial landforms such as natural levees, backswamps, oxbow ponds, and terraces – all associated with a particular type of vegetation.

The Thornapple River flows along the banks of MNA’s Thornapple Lake Nature Sanctuary as it empties into Thornapple Lake.

The flowing waters help the soils thaw earlier in the spring, meaning these are often the places where the first wildflowers bloom. Insects, invertebrates, reptiles, and amphibians appear almost simultaneously to take advantage of the food sources provided by these wildflowers. “These forests are often very important stopover or even nesting sites for declining neotropical migratory birds as well.” “Often they are the last forested strongholds in a lot of agriculturally-dominated landscapes and are therefore valuable for a variety of plants and animals.”

Threats to these impressive habitats are an all too familiar list – invasive plants and animals, hydrological modifications (levees, impoundments, channelization, dams), including those brought by climate change, habitat loss due to industrial, residential and agricultural fragmentation, and incompatible timber management. For those reasons, floodplain forests are both globally and state-ranked as vulnerable.

Copperbelly watersnakes are one rare species that use floodplain forests and other adjacent habitats. Photo courtesy Michigan Natural Features Inventory.

For sometimes being no more than a narrow, green edge along a river, the magnitude of floodplain forest benefits outweigh their seemingly limited size. Besides important habitat, they play a critical function in Michigan’s fight against climate change. When water flows across the land to a river, the floodplain forest serves as a buffer, absorbing both the quantity and the energy of that flow while filtering pollutants. Floodplain forests therefore help to protect the water quality in many of Michigan’s watersheds.

Celebrating Michigan’s Wilderness on World Rewilding Day

Today, March 20^th, Michiganders across the state are celebrating the start of spring. We, too, look forward to all that this season brings including wildflowers, bird migration, and more. But today, we are especially excited about World Rewilding Day—established in 2021, World Rewilding Day raises awareness of the need for large, ‘wild’ habitat in the fight against climate change-driven extinctions.

An aerial photograph showing the Ottawa National Forest. Photo by Jason Whalen | Fauna Creative

Our recently-released video “Keep the U.P. Wild” explores one such effort in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The Keep the U.P. Wild Coalition last year began a campaign to add federal Wilderness designation to more than 40,000 acres of land in the western U.P., and has since grown to include more than 300 organizations.

Designation requires congressional action, which would provide the highest level of federal land protection for the four areas within the one-million-acre Ottawa National Forest in the western Upper Peninsula: The Trap Hills, Ehlco Area, Norwich Plains, and Sturgeon River Gorge Wilderness Addition.

If successful, wilderness designation would protect these areas for biological diversity, not resource extraction, while still providing opportunities for their respectful use, enjoyment, and economic benefit.

 “The scientific community has learned … that connections and scale really play an important role in the ability of many species to exist over time,” said MNA Conservation Director, Andrew Bacon. Wilderness designation at this scale would most certainly benefit the flora and fauna and provide for the natural processes that help reduce the effects of carbon in the atmosphere—one of the leading drivers of climate change.

Watch our video today, and learn more about this campaign and the coalition members at keeptheupwild.com.

Lake Erie Waves, Great Lakes Forests, and Mudpuppies: this week in environmental news

Turbulent waves in Lake Erie. Photo: Dave Sandford.

This Is What A Great Lake Looks Like After All The Vacationers Are Gone (Buzzfeed): Photographer Dave Sanford spent time on Lake Erie shooting the Great Lake’s turbulent fall season. From mid-October to mid-November, the longtime professional sports photographer traveled each week to Port Stanley, Ontario, on the edge of Lake Erie to spend hours taking photos. His goal was to capture the exact moment when lake waves driven by gusting winds collide with a rebound wave that’s created when the water hits a pier and collection of boulders on the shore. People are blown away that these are from a lake, and not an ocean due to the size and force.

Crayfish in Burt Lake are thought to be on the decline. Image: Greg Schechter, Flickr.

Pharmaceutical pollution takes toll on crayfish and other species (Great Lakes Echo): Drugs seeping into groundwater threaten crayfish and have a domino effect of environmental impacts that harm fish and other species, according to new research. Pharmaceutical pollution happens when medicines are improperly disposed or flushed into septic tanks and sewers as the body eliminates them. Treatment can’t filter them so they make their way into lakes and streams. Crayfish are a keystone species, one that many others species depend upon. If they died, so would trout and bass. That would lead to algae overgrowth and in turn, insects and invertebrates would die when decaying algae used up all the oxygen. At this point there are not solutions for removing pharmaceuticals once they are in lakes and streams, so this is a prevention issue. We need to keep it out of the waterways, improving septic and sewer systems to filter pharmaceutical pollution is a critical need.

Red pine forest in West Michigan. Image: Marie Orttenburger.

Researchers look to brace Great Lakes forests for climate change (Great Lakes Echo): Great Lakes forests will get warmer and suffer more frequent short-term droughts, scientists say. The stakes are high. Forests are staple ecosystems in the region. Many wildlife and plant species depend on forest stability. Plus, forests are a part of the regional culture. The approaches to climate change adaptation for trees are as diverse as the tree species.

Underwater shot of a mudpuppy at Wolf Lake. Image: Alicia Beattie.

Secretive amphibian can provide pollution clues (Great Lakes Echo): The mudpuppy is a fully-aquatic salamander thought to be on the decline–though the extent of that decline is unknown. The foot-long amphibians are classified a “threatened species” in the state of Illinois and considered a concern throughout the Great Lakes region. Destruction and degradation of habitat, along with invasive species, are spelling doom for mudpuppies. Mudpuppies are also very sensitive to pollution. That characteristic could make them especially important to researchers. Population statistics and tissue samples could clue scientists in on the effects pollution and habitat degradation are having on those environments.

Modoc suckers, Monarch butterflies, and climate change: this week in environmental news

Service Removes Modoc Sucker from the Federal List of Threatened and Endangered Wildlife (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Press Release): The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that, thanks to decades of collaborative conservation efforts under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), it is removing the Modoc sucker from the Act’s protections. This marks the second-time that a fish has been ‘delisted’ due to recovery. The Modoc sucker is a small fish native to the Upper Pit River Watershed in Southern Oregon and Northeastern California. The fish was listed as endangered in 1985 due to habitat loss and degradation from overgrazing, situation and channelization due to agriculture practices. The recovery of the Modoc sucker is a great victory for conservation, for the Endangered Species Act, and for our natural heritage.

Modoc sucker taken off Endangered Species List. Photo: USFWS

Trust fund awards $28 million for Michigan public lands projects (Great Lakes Echo): Michigan’s Natural Resources Trust Fund will award nearly $28 million for public lands projects, including funds for the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Wildlife and Parks and Recreation divisions. The DNR Wildlife Division will get $2.47 million for a Petobego State Game Area in Grand Traverse County land acquisition project. The primary goal is to provide essential habitats for migratory and resident wildlife and create opportunities for hunting, trapping, fishing, and wildlife viewing.

Report: Mexico’s Monarch Butterfly Reserve Lost 24 Acres (ABC News): Studies found that illegal loggers clear-cut at least 24 acres in the monarch butterflies’ wintering ground in central Mexico this year. The butterflies depend on the pine and fir forests west of Mexico City to shelter them against cold and rain. Environmentalists called on authorities to stop illegal logging in the butterfly reserve.

A kaleidoscope of Monarch butterflies hang from a tree branch, in the Piedra Herrada sanctuary. Photo: Rebecca Blackwell

Oneida Lake among hundreds worldwide warming due to climate change: study (Syracuse.com): A new study of more than 200 lakes around the world show that many – including Oneida Lake – are warming so rapidly that toxic algae outbreaks could become more frequent. Increasing warmth in lakes is projected to increase algal blooms by 20%, and toxic blooms by 5%, according to NASA. The warmer water could also alter the balance of ecosystems and threaten the livelihood of people who depend on fish from the lakes.