Science & Research

National Park Service, North Dakota State University, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign scientists, recently published a study on the status of four bat species in nine Great Lakes region parks to understand the effects of White-Nose Syndrome.

A summary of forest vegetation monitoring at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, comparing data collected in 2011 with that collected in 2021.

A summary of acoustic bat monitoring in Great Lakes Network parks from 2015 through 2019.

A summary of amphibian monitoring data collected in seven Great Lakes Network parks as of 2019.

Great Lakes Network staff assisted Midwest Region staff in a mapping project that reveals a whole new way of looking at the Great Lakes parks.

Each park-specific page in the NPS Geodiversity Atlas provides basic information on the significant geologic features and processes occurring in the park. Links to products from Baseline Geologic and Soil Resources Inventories provide access to maps and reports.

A summary of amphibian monitoring at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore from 2014 through 2019.

A summary of bat monitoring at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore from 2015 through 2019.

Bald eagles can tell us a lot about contamination in aquatic systems because they are on top of the food web and fish are their primary prey—a food source they share with humans. From 2006 through 2015, the Great Lakes Inventory and Monitoring Network collected blood and feather samples from bald eagle nestlings to monitor contaminants in three upper Midwest national park units. This resource brief describes the results for just one of those contaminants: lead.

A diatom found in a sediment core collected in 2007 from Apostle Islands National Lakeshore turned out to be a previously unknown species. The new species is one of only three others in the genus Semiorbis. The scientist who found it named it after a now-retired aquatic ecologist with the NPS Great Lakes Inventory and Monitoring Network.