Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Using Fine-Scale Aquatic Habitat Data To Construct Dreissenid Sdms In The Laurentian Great Lakes, Grace C. Henderson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The invasion of the Laurentian Great Lakes by aquatic invasive species (AIS) has been the subject of investigation for decades, due to their dramatic alterations to the ecosystem and high economic costs. Two AIS with the largest impacts are dreissenid zebra and quagga mussels, and though these species have been studied extensively, questions remain about what factors control their distributions, and whether lake warming will alter these distributions. Species distribution models (SDMs) offer a powerful tool to examine the relationship between species presences and environmental variables, which are typically bioclimactic data. The creation of the Aquatic Habitat (AqHab) dataset containing …