INHS - Bulletins

INHS B41-01 PRINT ON DEMAND COPY

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Mauger, D. and Anton, T.G.
2015; 32 pages.

The distribution of amphibians and reptiles in Will County, Illinois, was assessed using museum records and results from 58 surveys conducted between 1986 and 2009 on lands owned and managed by the Forest Preserve District of Will County (FPDWC) and Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR).

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Authors: Chick, J.H., Soeken-Gittinger, L.A., Ratcliff, E.N., Gittinger, E.J., Lubinski, B.J., Maher, R.
2013; 98 pages.

Prologue: A Decade of Monitoring

Since 1991, the Illinois Natural History Survey has operated the Great Rivers Field Station, one of six field stations associated with the Long Term Resource Monitoring Program (LTRMP) of the Upper Mississippi River Restoration Environmental Management Program. This bulletin presents detailed findings for water quality and fish monitoring from 1994 to 2004 in Pool 26 of the Upper Mississippi River System (UMRS) collected and analyzed by scientists at the Great Rivers Field Station. We present this information with the goals of 1) demonstrating the value of these data for management of the natural resources of the UMRS, 2) to serve as an easily accessible vehicle for persons searching for information on environmental conditions in this reach of the UMRS, and 3) to generate hypotheses and questions that can be addressed further in future analyses of LTRMP data and/or through focused research studies. We hope that the findings we present will be useful to river scientists and managers, but we are also hopeful that nonscientists, such as nongovernmental organizations, decision makers, and the general public, will also find this work informative. With this in mind, we have limited ourselves to presenting only basic statistical analyses (e.g., graphs of central tendency and linear regression) with the exception of the last chapter. Long-term monitoring data for natural resources are rare and our understanding of the ecology of great rivers lags far behind most other ecosystems. Improving our management of these important natural resources will require more than the support of scientists and managers; society at large ultimately provides the funding necessary for these efforts and it needs to be informed so that they can judge the value and efficacy of programs such as the LTRMP. We hope that this bulletin will be informative to a wide audience.

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Authors: Lauren E. Brown and Christopher A. Phillips
2012; 26 pages.

The examination of 387 preserved red-bellied snakes, Storeria occipitomaculata, from 18 museums and collections, literature records, and unpublished records revealed distributional records throughout much of Illinois, in contrast to earlier studies which found a more limited distribution. Seventy-one records of habitat types from museum records, field notes, and literature indicated that the species occupies woodlands but is not primarily forest adapted. It also inhabits prairie and prairielike habitats in Illinois. The common occurrence of this pecies in this type of habitat has not heretofore been reported elsewhere in the range of the snake. Our findings do not support an older zoogeographic theory that assumed the snake was nonadapted for prairie and thus excluded from the Prairie Peninsula. We propose that the species was able to occupy the area near the ice rim of the Wisconsin Episode glaciation, and followed the glaciation as it retreated because of the snake's cold tolerance, ability to inhabit northern prairies and coniferous forests, vivipary, with allows thermoregulation by gravid females, and the relatively temperate climate along the glacial rim. Within recent times, it seems likely that the snake was extirpated throughout much of the former prairie by destructive changes associated with agriculture.

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Authors: Loy R. Phillippe, Brenda Molano-Flores, Michael J.C. Murphy, Paul B. Marcum, and John Ebinger
2011; 38 pages.

The sand deposits in Illinois occur on glacial outwash plains from the Wisconsinan glaciation that ended 8,000 to 10,000 years before present. Approximately 70 species of endangered and threatened plants are known to grow in these deposits. In the course of gathering data for Bulletin 39(4), we determined the habitat fidelity and natural community types for 40 of these species that are restricted to glacial drift sand habitats. Plant community types, associated species, moisture requirements, and other data concerning each of the plant species were determined by reviewing the pertinent literature, searching the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Natural Heritage Database, through discussions with botanists and natural heritage biologists, examination of herbarium specimens, and our studies of the vegetation of the Illinois sand deposits. Throughout the course of these studies, most of the nature preserves, state parks, and identified natural areas in the sand regions were visited on numerous occasions and vegetation surveys undertaken. The information presented in this bulletin could allow rare plant conservation in Illinois to become more proactive by encouraging the selection of sites where in situ conservation efforts could be conducted by state, local, and nongovernmental organizations.

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Authors: Dmitry A. Dmitriev and Christopher H. Dietrich
2010; 180 pages.