Distribution and abundance of canopy trees in floodplain forests of the Wisconsin River 1999 - 2001

The Wisconsin River Floodplain Project aimed to identify landscape indicators that are well correlated with specific aspects of ecological function. This is a crucial research need requiring an integrated approach that combines landscape monitoring with field studies. Large river-floodplain systems are among the most diverse and dynamic landscapes in the US, providing many important societal values, but relatively little effort has been devoted to development and testing of landscape indicators for these systems. We developed and tested ecological indicators for large river-floodplain landscapes along reaches of the Wisconsin River to determine which landscape metrics are most useful for monitoring population, community and ecosystem processes in large river-floodplain landscapes. Spatially extensive field sampling was combined with landscape analysis in nine reaches of the Wisconsin River sampling to quantify the ability of landscape indicators to predict ecological variables over broad scales. Landscape indicators were evaluated by their utility for detecting changes in the structure and function of the Wisconsin River floodplain landscape that were related to modification of the natural flow regime, historical land use, and current land-use patterns. Our field studies were concentrated in floodplain forest in nine 12 to 20-km reaches along the lower 400 km of the Wisconsin River.