Jennifer Hauxwell

University of Wisconsin–Madison | UW · Aquatic Sciences Center

Many of today's water resources challenges are wicked problems, demanding innovative solutions across the science-policy-management nexus. Simultaneously, early-career researchers in water resources face a shifting professional landscape in which academic career paths are sparse but where versatile skill sets relevant to water resources issues in g...

Invasive species are known to have negative ecological effects. However, few studies have evaluated the impacts of invasive species relative to the effects of invasive species control, thereby limiting our ability to make informed decisions considering the benefits and drawbacks of a given management approach. To address this gap, we compared the e...

Nault ME, Barton M, Hauxwell J, Heath E, Hoyman T, Mikulyuk A, Netherland MD, Provost S, Skogerboe J, Van Egeren S. 2017. Evaluation of large-scale low-concentration 2,4-D treatments for Eurasian and hybrid watermilfoil control across multiple Wisconsin lakes. Lake Reserv Manage. 00:00–00. Herbicides have been utilized for decades for nonnative mil...

Bioassessment methods are critically needed to evaluate and monitor lake ecological condition. Aquatic macrophytes are good candidate indicators, but few lake bioassessment methods developed in North America use them. The few macrophyte bioassessment methods that do exist suffer from problems related to subjectivity and discernibility along disturb...

Eurasian watermilfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum) is a non-native and invasive aquatic macrophyte with a broad North American distribution. It can have significant negative effects on invaded waterbodies, including decreased native macrophyte diversity, formation of recreational nuisances, and lowered lakefront property values. Previous research sugges...

Eurasian watermilfoil (EWM) is an invasive aquatic plant with the potential to disrupt native aquatic plant communities, decrease property values, and affect recreational uses of lakes. Much time, effort, and money is put forth every year to combat the spread of this invader. We examined the long-term efficacy of EWM management using herbicide and...

Aim We studied global variation in beta diversity patterns of lake macrophytes using regional data from across the world. Specifically, we examined (1) how beta diversity of aquatic macrophytes is partitioned between species turnover and nestedness within each study region, and (2) which environmental characteristics structure variation in these be...

Abstract Movement of organisms through the horticultural trade explains the majority of nonindigenous aquatic invasive plant introductions. Prevention is the most promising approach to reducing the spread of nonindigenous species, but key vectors persist. To better understand the risk posed by trade in aquatic plants, we surveyed all known aquatic...

The aquatic plant community is a critical habitat and nursery for fish, a source of oxygen for all organisms, a refuge for prey as well as a foraging area for predators, a buffer against erosion and sediment resuspension from both waves and shoreline inputs, and can significantly contribute to overall lake primary productivity. Over the past severa...

The herbicide 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid) has been used to control the nonnative aquatic plant Eurasian watermilfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum; EWM) since the 1950s. Although published research evaluates the herbicide's predicted and observed concentration and exposure times in both laboratory and field settings, few data are available eva...

Invasive species are leading drivers of environmental change. Their impacts are often linked to their population size, but surprisingly little is known about how frequently they achieve high abundances. A nearly universal pattern in ecology is that species are rare in most locations and abundant in a few, generating right-skewed abundance distribut...

https://olw-lwrd.countyofdane.com/documents/PDFs/Turville_project_report.pdf

Quantifying the relative role of environmental and spatial factors to understand patterns in community composition is a fundamental goal of community ecology. We applied a tested and repeatable point-intercept sampling method to aquatic macrophyte assemblages in 225 Wisconsin lakes to understand the ability of environmental, land-use, and spatial p...

Aquatic macrophyte communities were assessed in 53 lakes in Wisconsin, U.S.A. along environmental and land use development gradients to determine effects human land use perturbations have on aquatic macrophytes at the watershed and riparian development scales. Species richness and relative frequency were surveyed in lakes from two ecoregions: the N...

We outline and test an aquatic plant sampling methodology designed to track changes in and make comparisons among lake plant communities over time. The method employs a systematic grid-based point-intercept sampling design with sampling resolution adjusted based on littoral area and lake shape. We applied this method in 72 Wisconsin lakes ranging f...

The aquatic plant community is a critical habitat and nursery for fish, a source of oxygen for all organisms, a refuge for prey as well as a foraging area for predators, a buffer against erosion and sediment resuspension from both waves and shoreline inputs, and can significantly contribute to overall lake primary productivity. Over the past severa...

Abstract It has been suggested that shallow lakes in warm climates have a higher probability of being turbid, rather than macrophyte dominated, compared with lakes in cooler climates, but little field evidence exists to evaluate this hypothesis. We analyzed data from 782 lake years in different climate zones in North America, South America, and Eur...

Many marine protected areas (MPAs) have been established in recent years. Some MPAs are open to tourists to foster environmental education and generate revenue for the MPA. This has been coined “ecological tourism”. Here, we examine the impact of ecological tourism on turtlegrass (Thalassia testudinum) health in one area of the “Costa Occidental de...

Author Posting. © Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation, 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Estuaries and Coasts 31 (2008): 532-541, doi:10.1007/s12237-008-9039-6. Anthropogenic inputs of nutrients to coasta...

Coastal waters, including estuaries and nearshore oceanic environments, are among the most highly productive areas in the world. Despite comprising only 1-2% of total ocean area, coastal waters support approximately 20% of total oceanic primary production (Smith 1981, Charpy-Robaud & Sournia 1990) - which in turn fuels approximately 50% of marine f...

An annual cycle of biomass and productivity of wild celery (Vallisneria americana) was studied in Kings Bay, FL, USA. In situ growth rates were measured monthly between March 2001 and June 2002 in high-density stands, using a modified hole-punching technique, and applied to shoot density data to obtain areal estimates of production. Mean shoot dens...

Four pilot whole-lake herbicide treatments for extensive Eurasian watermilfoil (EWM) (Myriophyllum spicatum L.) infestations were conducted in Wisconsin between 1997 and 2001 using fluridone at a range of dosages (6–16 μg/L). Annual post-treatment data (4–7 years) were evaluated to assess (1) effects on exotic plants; (2) changes to native plant co...

We examined the coupling between eelgrass growth dynamics and surface irradiance over an annual cycle in four shallow estuaries of the Waquoit Bay system (MA, USA) that have similar physical characteristics, but are subject to different land-derived nitrogen loading rates and eutrophication. Contrary to our hypothesis, the results show that most me...

Vallisneria americana is a native macrophyte in freshwater and oligohaline ecosystems, often forming meadows that significantly affect ecosystem carbon and nutrient cycling and provide structural habitat. Vallisneria has declined in abundance in several Florida lakes, rivers, and estuaries. We conducted an 11-month field experiment in Kings Bay, Fl...

We conducted a field experiment between August 2001 and February 2002 in Kings Bay, FL, USA, designed to determine whether the amount of time allowed for wild celery (Vallisneria americana Michx) transplants to establish altered the effect of herbivorous manatees (Trichechus manatus L.) on their survival. We employed a 2 by 2 factorial design in wh...

In this paper, we explicitly link changes in community structure of estuarine primary producers to measured nitrogen loading rates from watersheds to estuaries, and quantify the relationship between nitrogen load, annual dynamics of algal growth and Zostera marina L. productivity, and overall eelgrass decline at the watershed-estuarine scale in est...

Salt marshes are located between land and coastal water environments, and nutrient and production dynamics within salt marshes interact with those of adjoining ecosystems. Salt marshes tend to export materials to deeper waters, as shown by mass balance and stable isotopic studies. Salt marshes also intercept land-derived nutrients, and thus modify...

Coastal aquatic systems, including estuarine and marine nearshore environments, deserve our attention for three key reasons. First, healthy coastal systems provide homes and food for numerous plants and animals. Second, we use these systems extensively for commercial and recreational activities, and third, both our coastal and inland activities can...

Loss of eelgrass (Zostera marina) habitat from temperate estuaries worldwide often coincides with increased macroalgal accumulations resulting from increased delivery of anthropogenic nitrogen. We conducted macroalgal enclosure/exclosure experiments during summer 1998 within eelgrass populations in two estuaries of Waquoit Bay, Massachusetts, USA,...

The relative biomass of autotrophs (vascular plants, macroalgae, microphytobenthos, phytoplankton) in shallow aquatic ecosystems is thought to be controlled by nutrient inputs and underwater irradiance. Widely accepted conceptual models indicate that this is the case both in marine and freshwater systems. In this paper we examine four case studies...

Growth rates of Halodule wrightii determined using the traditional method of clipping and reharvesting were compared to those determined using the hole-punching method in four populations distributed in coastal lagoons of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. For three of the four populations, clipped shoots revealed 38–56% lower growth rates than punched...

Sustainable coastal management requires that the goals and means of management be made operational and specific. We use Waquoit Bay, Massachusetts, as a case study, to suggest a decision-making process that brings updated scientific results forward while incorporating stakeholder concerns. Land-derived nitrogen loading is the major agent of change...

http://disccrs.org/dissertation_abstract?abs_id=2291

Macroalgal biomass and competitive interactions among primary producers in coastal ecosystems may be controlled by bottom-up processes such as nutrient supply and top-down processes such as grazing, as well as other environmental factors. To determine the relative importance of bottom-up and top-down processes under different nutrient loading condi...

Macroalgal blooms are produced by nutrient enrichment of estuaries in which the sea floor lies within the photic zone. We review features of macroalgal blooms pointed out in recent literature and summarize work done in the Waquoit Bay Land Margin Ecosystems Research project which suggests that nutrient loads, water residence times, presence of frin...

Studies have shown that the earthworm, Lumbricus rubellus, is often less abundant in soils with lower pH. However, it is not known if earthworms physiologically cannot tolerate low pH or if low pH soils lack nutrients (e.g., calcium) that are necessary for earthworm survival. To determine the effects of pH, moisture, and calcium levels on earthworm...