Collections, Heterogeneous data, and Next Generation Ecological Studies (CHANGES) - Michigan Lake Surveys

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.

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.