Iowa Trophy Deer, October 19, 2015

This document lists trophy white-tail deer. A deer qualifies as a trophy by the score of the conformation of its antlers and and by type of weapon that was used.

1003-001 Williamson Pond Final Report

Williamson Pond is a 26-acre publicly owned lake located about 2 miles east of the town of Williamson, in Lucas County. It has a watershed area of 1,499 acres. It has been managed since 1976 by the Lucas County Conservation Board (while still under state ownership) for fishing, boating, hunting, picnicking and other passive uses. Designated uses are Class AI, primary contact, and Class B (LW) aquatic life. Williamson Pond is on the 2004 EPA 303(d) List of Impaired Waters. A Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for turbidity and nutrients at Williamson Pond was prepared by IDNR in 2005 and approved by EPA in 2006. The TMDL set reduction targets for both suspended sediment and phosphorus. The Williamson Pond Watershed Management Plan has provided the local work group and partners with information to develop and implement strategies to improve and protect water quality. These strategies are based on a three phase approach that will ultimately lead the removal of Williamson Pond from the Impaired Waters List. The goals identified in this proposal (Phase I) will reduce sediment and phosphorus delivery by 453 tons and 589 pounds annually. The Lucas County SWCD has and will continue to provide leadership on the Williamson Pond Project and has secured the partnerships necessary to address water quality problems and hired a part-time project coordinator to manage, implement, and oversee all activities pertaining to this proposal.

1119-008 Lake Icaria Final Report

Lake Icaria is a 660 acre man-made lake in rural Adams County. Lake Icaria is a popular recreational attraction providing ample fishing, boating, and swimming opportunities. Constructed in 1977 for water supply, Lake lcaria continues to provide reliable drinking water to 1,900 households in Adams and Montgomery counties. No stranger to the water quality world, Lake Icaria was the primary lake in the 3Lakes Water Quality Project(1996-2004), an eight year water quality effort which came to be known as one oflowa's first great water quality successes. At time of construction the Lake Icaria watershed was primarily grass. A shift towards maximizing crop production in the 1980's brought about the end of dairy farms and a concern for sediment loss and how that would affect water quality. This change in land use set the stage for the first water quality project at Lake Icaria. Since the conclusion of the 3Lakes Water Quality Project in 2004land use in the watershed has made yet another monumental shift towards crop production. Nearly 2,000 acres ofland that was once in the conservation reserve program is now being planted to a crop. This change in land use has once again brought about serious concerns for the quality of water being provided by Lake Icaria.

09007-004 Upper Buffalo Creek Watershed Final Report

The main channel of Upper Buffalo Creek has been identified on Iowa's 303(d) List of Impaired Waters as having a biological impairment (i.e., greater than 50% decrease in mussel species) due to habitat modification, stream alteration, nutrients, and/or siltation. The Buchanan County SWCD has identified this as a priority watershed because mussel population decreases have been well documented to be directly associated with decreases in ecological value, recreational value, and overall water quality. The presence of a diverse and reproducing mussel population indicates that a healthy aquatic ecosystem is intact, which means good fishing, good water quality for wildlife, and assurance that water is safe for recreation. Dan Cohen, Buchanan Conservation Board Director, stated that "should water quality conditions improve, and fishing holes and habitat be enhanced, there is no doubt that many people would take advantage of the renewed recreational opportunities". This watershed contains two "threatened" species of mussels and five "sensitive" species of fish. The District feels that a watershed project will assist in implementing conservation practices that will greatly improve water quality and enhance biological and recreational venues.

05011-055 Yellow River Watershed Improvement Project Final Report

An overall effort has been initiated to improve the quality of the Yellow River in Northeast Iowa by reducing the amount of sediment and bacteria entering the stream. Funding for this project will be utilized to improve stream quality to the level of fully supporting game fish such as brown, rainbow and brook trout, walleye, northern pike and smallmouth bass. The Yellow River has the potential to be one of the top trout streams, not only in Iowa, but in the entire Upper Midwest. This project will greatly enhance recreational activities such as fishing, canoeing and inner tubing and will greatly increase tourism dollars to the state. The project will specifically address two sources of impairment: stream bank erosion and coliform bacteria from both livestock and inadequate human septic systems.

07032-012 Lake MacBride Watershed Final Report

Lake Macbride is considered to be one of the top four lakes for fishing in the state of Iowa. It is widely used by the public and contributes significant economic benefits to the county. Lake Macbride is situated in the North Corridor which is one of the fastest growing areas in the state. The lake has a surface area of 940 acres and drains 16,205 acres. Lake Macbride is on the Iowa 303(d) list for excessive sediments and nutrients. In 2001, Lake Macbride State Park received over 2.5 million dollars from the Marine Fuel Tax and Fish and Wildlife Trust to install 2 silt basins and stabilize over 12 miles of shoreline in the lake. Also in 2001, the Johnson County SWCD received a WSPF allocation from DSC to address agriculture and urban runoff issues in the watershed. Section 319 funding was received in 2002 to continue watershed efforts to the present. A watershed assessment was completed in 2003 to guide watershed activities. In 2005, a TMDL was completed for the lake. Since 2001, over $645,000 dollars has been spent by landowners and funding partners to install conservation practices in the watershed. Watershed efforts have resulted in the reduction of over 4200 tons of soils from being delivered into Lake Macbride. Nutrient reductions have also occurred from the development of nutrient management plans on 2000 acres. The District is in the process of wrapping up watershed efforts on private land. A series of 13 structures is planned to be installed in the State Park over the next several years. One of the last remaining items that still needs addressed is 1,400 feet of eroding shoreline adjacent to Lake Macbride along Cottage Reserve Road. The road is under the jurisdiction of the Johnson County Board of Supervisors. Both the Board of Supervisors and the IDNR are willing to contribute substantial dollars to address the 250 tons of soil that are being directly delivered to Lake Macbride each year.

Water-oriented outdoor recreation, fish and wildlife : executive summary, 1978.

The information presented in this summary document has been based on the comprehensive,"Task Force Report on Water-Oriented Outdoor Recreation, Fish and Wildlife." The overriding principle the main task force report conveyed is that Iowa should not forsake the remaining water-oriented fish and wildlife resource base in the name of economic development.The reader should refer to the task force document for more detailed information.

Fishery of the Goliath grouper, Epinephelus itajara (Teleostei: Epinephelidae) based on local ecological knowledge and fishery records in Yucatan, Mexico

The Goliath grouper, Epinephelus itajara, a large-bodied (similar to 2.5 m TL, > 400 kg) and critically endangered fish (Epinephelidae), is highly Vulnerable to overfishing. Although protected from fishing in many countries, its exploitation in Mexico is unregulated; a situation that puts its populations at risk. Fishery records of E. itajara are scarce, which prevents determination of its fishery status. This work aimed to elucidate the E itajara fishery in the northern Yucatan Peninsula by 1) analyzing available catch records and 2) interviewing veteran fishermen (local ecological knowledge) from two traditional landing sites: Dzilam de Bravo and Puerto Progreso. Historic fishery records from two fishing cooperatives were analyzed in order to elucidate the current situation and offer viable alternatives for conservation and management. Catches have decreased severely. Local knowledge obtained from fishermen represented a very important source of information for reconstructing the fisheries history of this species. Conservation measures that incorporate regional and international regulations on critically endangered fish species are suggested

Activity patterns and foraging behaviour of Audouin's gulls at the Ebro Delta, NW Mediterranean.

Twenty Audouin´s gulls, Larus audouinii, breeding in the Ebro Delta (NW Mediterranean) were radio-tracked in 1998 to study their foraging behaviour and activity patterns. Some detrimental effects of tagging on the breeding success of the birds were detected, especially when both members of the pair were tagged. The results were actually constrained by the low number of locations due to natural breeding failure and failure in tag emission, as well as the adverse effect of tagging. However, through a combination of aircraft surveys at sea and a fixed station for automatic tracking of the presence of the birds at the colony, novel individual-based information of home ranges and activity patterns was obtained. Trawler fishing activity seemed to influence both the foraging range and habitat use: while trawlers operated, gulls overlapped their fishing grounds with vessels, probably to scavenge on discards. Very few locations were obtained during a trawling moratorium period, although they were all recorded in coastal bays and terrestrial habitats. During the trawling activity period, gulls ranged over a minimum convex polygon area of 2900 km2. Gulls were tracked up to 40 km from the colony, but some individuals were observed beyond 150 km while still breeding. Arrivals and departures from the colony were in accordance with the trawling timetable. However, most birds also showed some nocturnal foraging activity, probably linked to active fishing of clupeoids (following diel migrations) or to the exploitation of purse-seine fishing activity. Foraging trips lasted on average 15 hours: males performed significantly shorter trips than females, which spent more time outside the colony. The proportion of nocturnal time involved in the foraging trips was the same for males and females, but whilst all males initiated their trips both during the day and at night, some females only initiated their trips during the day. Hatching success was found to be related to foraging effort by males. Gulls spent on average ca. 38% of their time budget outside the nesting territory, representing the time devoted mainly to flying, foraging and other activities.

Phylogeography and population genetics of north European Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.)

Although abundant in the number of individuals, the Atlantic salmon may be considered as a threatened species in many areas of its native distribution range. Human activities such as building of power plant dams, offshore overfishing, pollution, clearing of riverbeds for timber floating and badly designed stocking regimes have diminished the distribution of Atlantic salmon. As a result of this, many of the historical populations both in Europe and northern America have gone extinct or are severely depressed. In fact, only 1% of Atlantic salmon existing today are of natural origin, the rest being farmed salmon. All of this has lead to a vast amount of research and many restoration programmes aiming to bring Atlantic salmon back to rivers from where it has vanished. However, many of the restoration programmes conducted thus far have been unsuccessful due to inadequate scientific research or lack of its implementation, highlighting the fact that more research is needed to fully understand the biology of this complex species. The White and Barents Seas in northwest Russia are among the last regions in Europe where Atlantic salmon populations are still stable, thus forming an important source of biodiversity for the entire European region. Salmon stocks from this area are also of immense economic and social importance for the local people in the form of fishing tourism. The main aim of this thesis was to elucidate the post-glacial history and population genetic structure of north European and particularly northwest Russian Atlantic salmon, both of which are aspects of great importance for the management and conservation of the species. Throughout the whole thesis, these populations were studied by utilizing microsatellites as the main molecular tool. One of the most important discoveries of the thesis was the division of Atlantic salmon from the White and Barents Seas into four separate clusters, which has not been observed in previous studies employing nuclear markers although is supported by mtDNA studies. Populations from the western Barents Sea clustered together with the northeast Atlantic populations into a clearly distinguishable group while populations from the White Sea and eastern Barents Sea were separated into three additional groups. This has important conservation implications as this thesis clearly indicates that conservation of populations from all of the observed clusters is warranted in order to conserve as much of the genetic diversity as possible in this area. The thesis also demonstrates how differences in population life histories within a species, migratory behaviour in this case, and in their phylogeographic origin affect the genetic characteristics of populations, namely diversity and divergence levels. The anadromous populations from the Atlantic Ocean, White Sea and Barents Sea possessed higher levels of genetic diversity than the anadromous populations form the Baltic Sea basin. Among the non-anadromous populations the result was the opposite: the Baltic freshwater populations were more variable. This emphasises the importance of taking the life history of a population into consideration when developing conservation strategies: due to the limited possibilities for new genetic diversity to be generated via gene flow, it is expected that freshwater Atlantic salmon populations would be more vulnerable to extinction following a population crash and thus deserve a high conservation status. In the last chapter of this thesis immune relevant marker loci were developed and screened for signatures of natural selection along with loci linked to genes with other functions or no function at all. Also, a novel landscape genomics method, which combines environmental information with molecular data, was employed to investigate whether immune relevant markers displayed significant correlations to various environmental variables more frequently than other loci. Indications of stronger selection pressure among immune-relevant loci compared to non-immune relevant EST-linked loci was found but further studies are needed to evaluate whether it is a common phenomenon in Atlantic salmon.

A spatial modelling framework for assessing climate change impacts on freshwater ecosystems: Response of brown trout (Salmo trutta L.) biomass to warming water temperature

Mountain regions worldwide are particularly sensitive to on-going climate change. Specifically in the Alps in Switzerland, the temperature has increased twice as fast than in the rest of the Northern hemisphere. Water temperature closely follows the annual air temperature cycle, severely impacting streams and freshwater ecosystems. In the last 20 years, brown trout (Salmo trutta L) catch has declined by approximately 40-50% in many rivers in Switzerland. Increasing water temperature has been suggested as one of the most likely cause of this decline. Temperature has a direct effect on trout population dynamics through developmental and disease control but can also indirectly impact dynamics via food-web interactions such as resource availability. We developed a spatially explicit modelling framework that allows spatial and temporal projections of trout biomass using the Aare river catchment as a model system, in order to assess the spatial and seasonal patterns of trout biomass variation. Given that biomass has a seasonal variation depending on trout life history stage, we developed seasonal biomass variation models for three periods of the year (Autumn-Winter, Spring and Summer). Because stream water temperature is a critical parameter for brown trout development, we first calibrated a model to predict water temperature as a function of air temperature to be able to further apply climate change scenarios. We then built a model of trout biomass variation by linking water temperature to trout biomass measurements collected by electro-fishing in 21 stations from 2009 to 2011. The different modelling components of our framework had overall a good predictive ability and we could show a seasonal effect of water temperature affecting trout biomass variation. Our statistical framework uses a minimum set of input variables that make it easily transferable to other study areas or fish species but could be improved by including effects of the biotic environment and the evolution of demographical parameters over time. However, our framework still remains informative to spatially highlight where potential changes of water temperature could affect trout biomass. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.-

Nutrient enrichment and water depth modify consumer control in rocky shore macroalgal communities

The objective of my thesis is to assess mechanisms of ecological community control in macroalgal communities in the Baltic Sea. In the top-down model, predatory fish feed on invertebrate mesograzers, releasing algae partly from grazing pressure. Such a reciprocal relationship is called trophic cascade. In the bottom-up model, nutrients increase biomass in the food chain. The nutrients are first assimilated by algae and, via food chain, increase also abundance of grazers and predators. Previous studies on oceanic shores have described these two regulative mechanisms in the grazer - alga link, but how they interact in the trophic cascades from fish to algae is still inadequately known. Because the top-down and bottom-up mechanisms are predicted to depend on environmental disturbances, such as wave stress and light, I have studied these models at two distinct water depths. There are five factorial field experiments behind the thesis, which were all conducted in the Finnish Archipelago Sea. In all the experiments, I studied macroalgal colonization - either density, filament length or biomass - on submerged colonization substrates. By excluding predatory fish and mesograzers from the algal communities, the studies compared the strength of the top-down control to natural algal communities. A part of the experimental units were, in addition, exposed to enriched nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations, which enabled testing of bottom-up control. These two models of community control were further investigated in shallow (<1 m) and deep (ca. 3 m) water. Moreover, the control mechanisms were also expected to depend on grazer species. Therefore different grazer species were enclosed into experimental units and their impacts on macroalgal communities were followed specifically. The community control in the Baltic rocky shores was found to follow theoretical predictions, which have not been confirmed by field studies before. Predatory fish limited grazing impact, which was seen as denser algal communities and longer algal filaments. Nutrient enrichment increased density and filament length of annual algae and, thus, changed the species composition of the algal community. The perennial alga Fucus vesiculosusA and the red alga Ceramium tenuicorne suffered from the increased nutrient availabilities. The enriched nutrient conditions led to denser grazer fauna, thereby causing strong top-down control over both the annual and perennial macroalgae. The strength of the top-down control seemed to depend on the density and diversity of grazers and predators as well as on the species composition of macroalgal assemblages. The nutrient enrichment led to, however, weaker limiting impact of predatory fish on grazer fauna, because fish stocks did not respond as quickly to enhanced resources in the environment as the invertebrate fauna. According to environmental stress model, environmental disturbances weaken the top-down control. For example, on a wave-exposed shore, wave stress causes more stress to animals close to the surface than deeper on the shore. Mesograzers were efficient consumers at both the depths, while predation by fish was weaker in shallow water. Thus, the results supported the environmental stress model, which predicts that environmental disturbance affects stronger the higher a species is in the food chain. This thesis assessed the mechanisms of community control in three-level food chains and did not take into account higher predators. Such predators in the Baltic Sea are, for example, cormorant, seals, white-tailed sea eagle, cod and salmon. All these predatory species were recently or are currently under intensive fishing, hunting and persecution, and their stocks have only recently increased in the region. Therefore, it is possible that future densities of top predators may yet alter the strengths of the controlling mechanisms in the Baltic littoral zone.

Del patrimonio natural de los peces al patrimonio cultural del pescado: el Espai del Peix de Palamós

By submitting a brief example of the production process in the maritime heritage and fishing, we try to show that, among the different maritime heritage production processes that are occurring today in the Costa Brava (Catalonia, Spain), different “logics” are guiding these processes, which are causing a real transformation of the concept of maritime heritage and practices associated with it

El medi marí del cap de Creus i el golf de Roses

El medi marí de cap de Creus i golf de Roses té unes característiques ecològiques, geològiques i oceanogràfiques excepcionals que han permès el desenvolupament turístic i pesquer de les viles costaneres adjacents, Aquest article sintetitza els principals valors ecològics i econòmics de l'àmbit marí d'aquests dos espais inclosos dins la candidatura de Patrimoni Mundial de la UNESCO

Longer and less overlapping food webs in anthropogenically disturbed marine ecosystems: confirmations from the past

The human exploitation of marine resources is characterised by the preferential removal of the largest species. Although this is expected to modify the structure of food webs, we have a relatively poor understanding of the potential consequences of such alteration. Here, we take advantage of a collection of ancient consumer tissues, using stable isotope analysis and SIBER to assess changes in the structure of coastal marine food webs in the South-western Atlantic through the second half of the Holocene as a result of the sequential exploitation of marine resources by hunter-gatherers, western sealers and modern fishermen. Samples were collected from shell middens and museums. Shells of both modern and archaeological intertidal herbivorous molluscs were used to reconstruct changes in the stable isotopic baseline, while modern and archaeological bones of the South American sea lion Otaria flavescens, South American fur seal Arctocephalus australis and Magellanic penguin Spheniscus magellanicus were used to analyse changes in the structure of the community of top predators. We found that ancient food webs were shorter, more redundant and more overlapping than current ones, both in northern-central Patagonia and southern Patagonia. These surprising results may be best explained by the huge impact of western sealing on pinnipeds during the fur trade period, rather than the impact of fishing on fish populations. As a consequence, the populations of pinnipeds at the end of the sealing period were likely well below the ecosystem's carrying capacity, which resulted in a release of intraspecific competition and a shift towards larger and higher trophic level prey. This in turn led to longer and less overlapping food webs.