Impact of Great Lakes Coastal Wetland Restoration on Seasonal Bird Assemblages

Wisconsin Wetlands Association Wetland Coffee Break livestream talk, on Zoom. RSVP for link.

media release: The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) is the leading large-scale restoration program targeting the ecological health of the Laurentian Great Lakes; since 2010, 530,000 acres of coastal wetland and nearshore habitats, as well as other habitats, have been protected and restored. The impact of coastal wetland restoration on bird assemblages has not yet been widely assessed in the context of the GLRI. Using indexed breeding season survey data from the GLRI-funded Coastal Wetland Monitoring Program (2011-2025), we evaluate changes in avian assemblages at over 20 restoration sites spread throughout all five Great Lakes. Graduate student Isabel Dunn will share the results of this analysis, which explicitly tests hypotheses linking changes in bird taxonomic and functional diversity to coastal wetland habitat restoration activities in the context of factors such as change in wetland vegetation quality and extent of emergent vegetation.

Isabel Dunn is a current master’s degree student in the Water Resources Science program at University of Minnesota Duluth. Prior to graduate school, she was an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education research participant at the Environmental Protection Agency Great Lakes National Program Office. She graduated in 2021 from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point with a bachelor of science degree in water resources.