Archives at the Institute for Fisheries Research (IFR) hold meticulous records of thousands of lake surveys from the University of Michigan and Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Starting more than a century ago, surveys have been used to understand how fish were distributed across the state, which lakes would support sportfishing, and how lakes should be managed. We can now use these records of lake conditions and fish abundance and growth to understand how climate change and other factors have impacted fish communities. and The records contained in this collection are digitized records from the IFR surveys stored as jpeg image files. This collection includes information on both lake factors (e.g. depth, nutrients, temperature) and fishes (e.g. species, catch, length). Scanned cards were organized by card type and each dataset in this collection is for a specific card type.
Archives at the Institute for Fisheries Research (IFR) hold records of thousands of lake surveys from the University of Michigan and Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The records contained in this dataset are jpeg images of the index card records from the IFR surveys. Images include the front of the card and when available, the back of a card. and Lake Summary cards include information about the lake location and its characteristics, such as lake depth, water chemistry, water color, and transparency (commonly measured as Secchi depth). There is information on surrounding characteristics such as its connectivity to other waterbodies, shoreline conditions, and surrounding land-use. This card also lists the fishes present in the lake and makes observations about fishing pressure, parasites, and reproduction.
