Within the Great Lakes Science Center, interdisciplinary research on coastal ecosystems of the Great Lakes is carried out by the Coastal and Wetland Ecology Branch. Current wetland research efforts fall into three categories, although they are all linked by the common thread of hydrologic fluctuations in the Great Lakes.

1) Long-term studies of the relations between Great Lakes water levels and wetlands have progressed to a five-year study that evaluates the effects on wetland plant communities of water-level regulation on Lake Ontario, develops predictive models for testing a variety of proposed new regulation plans, and helps develop an environmentally sensitive regulation plan.

2) Global climate change studies of wetlands across chronosequences of beach ridges and intervening swales in lakes Michigan and Superior have used coastal sedimentology methods to produce a 4700-yr record of past lake levels that serves as a proxy for climate change, paleoecological and modern plant ecology studies to tie this proxy to plant community changes, and hydrology studies to help explain the interactions between climate change, lake levels, and wetland response. Continuing work will focus heavily on the role of ground-water hydrology and refining proxies for climate change.

3) Wetland restoration and management studies focus largely on FWS refuge lands and ties to hydrology, especially the need for natural hydrologic processes. Restoration of Metzger Marsh in Ottawa NWR in western Lake Erie uses a water-control structure (containing a fish passageway) in the lakeside dike to retain hydrologic connections to the lake; techniques such as use of a temporary aqua-dam are being tested for restoration of adjacent Crane Creek in Ottawa NWR, a drowned-river-mouth wetland that suffered many types of human-induced degradation, continues to be lake-connected, and is bordered by numerous diked wetlands.