Inland lake AIS monitoring priorities - points

The Great Lakes states and Indigenous Nations have developed a comprehensive approach to regional early detection and response planning that helps agencies determine where to sample for AIS, which species to prioritize for identification, how to work together as a region to respond to new introductions of AIS, and how to communicate findings with partners. This point dataset is one of the many resources emerging from this collaborative effort. The dataset contains model-based priority scores for approximately 68,000 inland lakes across the Great Lakes states, indicating their relative likelihood of serving as early invasion hotspots for three broad guilds of AIS: plants, invertebrates, and fish. Scores range from 0 to 1, with higher values representing higher relative priority for surveillance. The models were developed using observations of AIS introduced to the region relatively recently, along with region-wide spatial datasets representing major introduction pathways and habitat suitability. Separate generalized machine-learning models were developed for each guild to identify potential hotspots for early introductions across inland lakes. This generalized approach is intended to support data-driven surveillance and management by identifying areas at higher overall risk of AIS introduction, particularly early in a species’ spread, without requiring a separate model for every individual species. Learn more about this work at glc.org.