MAPS - Reading Room

MAPS board members, many of them scientists, regularly share articles they think lake residents should see. Some are research, some are news, and some are just good reasons to get out and explore. We collect them here by topic, newest first. Some links may lead to sites that require a subscription.

Water Quality & Lake Science

Fish flies are back along Lake St. Clair, and that’s good news (video and article): WXYZ Detroit, June 2026. The annual fish fly swarms are a nuisance for shoreline residents, but experts say they signal good water quality.

Invasive species will try to spread at ‘terrifying speed’ this summer: Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA Today, May 2026. Explains why some outdoor recreation rules, like cleaning boats between lakes, exist: they’re part of a broad effort to stop destructive invasive species from spreading. Includes how readers can help.

Michigan loves a ‘river story.’ But happy ending isn’t guaranteed: Bridge Michigan, May 2026. Michigan’s rivers are healthier than they were 50 years ago, but unresolved problems and new threats could push them backward, and about half of the state’s river miles exceed safe-swimming standards.

All Too Clear: Beneath the Surface of the Great Lakes (video, 57 min): Detroit PBS, May 2026. Documentary on how invasive mussels are stripping nutrients that young whitefish depend on, and on efforts to control the mussels and restore the native ecosystem.

A good mayfly hatch a sign of the health of Lake Erie: Toledo Blade, May 2026. Mayflies are vital to the aquatic ecosystem in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan, and a strong hatch is one of the main signs a lake is recovering.

Fish & Wildlife

The first documentation of lake sturgeon feeding excavations: Briggs et al., Journal of Great Lakes Research, October 2026. Divers in Lake St. Clair found the first recorded lake sturgeon feeding pits, at up to 17 per square meter, which could help researchers locate feeding habitat elsewhere in the Great Lakes. (Abstract free; full article requires subscription.)

Lake sturgeon may live for centuries: MSU Today, August 2026. Using decades of tagging data, Michigan State and DNR researchers found that many lake sturgeon likely live well beyond 200 years. The photos are from the upper Black River.

Lake sturgeon production season at Genoa National Fish Hatchery (video): U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Facebook reel. A look inside a Wisconsin hatchery that raises 40,000 to 60,000 lake sturgeon a year for stocking in five states, Michigan included.

Cougar cubs spotted in Michigan for the first time in more than 100 years: WXYZ Detroit, March 2025. The DNR verified photos of two cubs in Ontonagon County, the first confirmed since cougars were hunted out of the state in the early 1900s.

This Tech Reveals the Secret Lives of Fish (video): Great Lakes Now, October 2024. How scientists use acoustic telemetry to track fish movements across the Great Lakes.

Freshwater Fish Diversity in the USA (maps): BiodiversityMapping.org, based on Jenkins et al., PNAS, 2015. Shows where native freshwater fish species are most concentrated across the lower 48. The Tennessee and Mobile river systems in the Southeast are the richest, while glaciated and arid regions have far fewer species.

Climate

Giant ‘heat storms’ are scorching Earth: Reuters, October 2026. A Reuters data analysis defines “heat storms” as supersized heat waves, finding they averaged about five a year in the 1960s and about 102 a year this decade.

Northern Michigan is on track to have its wettest year on record: WCMU, May 2026. Northern Michigan got more than 18 inches of rain from January through April, against about 10 in a typical year, and Cheboygan County ran nearly 6 inches above average.

Why Michigan is emerging as one of America’s worst-hit climate states: The Guardian, May 2026. Michigan is often called a “climate haven,” but floods, tornadoes, and last year’s ice storm, which damaged millions of acres of trees and left people without power for days, tell a different story. Scientists link the worsening extremes to shifts in the jet stream and warmer storm systems.

Once dismissed as weeds, native plants are now flying off the shelves: Grist, May 2026. Gardeners are turning to climate-resilient native plants as worries about extreme heat, flooding, and pollinators grow.

Something weird and worrying is happening with rain, study finds: USA Today, May 2026. When a year’s rain comes in fewer, heavier storms, less of it soaks into the ground and aquifers, even when total rainfall goes up.

What used to be extreme weather is becoming normal in Michigan: Detroit Free Press, May 2026. April’s record rainfall and late snowmelt flooded communities, wrecked roads, and threatened high-hazard dams across Michigan, and climate scientists say events like that are becoming routine rather than rare. Annual precipitation in the Great Lakes region is up about 14% since 1951.

Policy & Infrastructure

Enbridge temporarily halts work on Line 5 reroute after 1.3M gallon gas leak: Wisconsin Public Radio, August 2026. Enbridge paused construction of its Line 5 reroute in Wisconsin after a gas leak in Iron County.

Biz leaders push data centers, warning Michigan may miss ‘golden ticket’: Bridge Michigan, June 2026. At the Mackinac Policy Conference, business leaders urged the state to embrace data centers quickly or risk losing a wave of investment. Hyperscale data centers have been proposed in 11 Michigan counties, drawing bipartisan backlash over their land, water, and energy demands and the tax breaks offered to some of the world’s richest companies. Some communities have adopted moratoriums.

Line 5 and the Straits of Mackinac, Part 1 of 2: Tony Groves, The Michigan Riparian, Summer 2026. Background on the pipelines’ age, condition, and exposure to anchor strikes. Reprinted with permission.

How do we adapt Michigan’s dams to climate change?: Interlochen Public Radio via Michigan Advance, May 2026. After record flooding in northern Michigan, experts are calling for stronger dam safety rules. More than half of the state’s 2,500 dams are past their 50-year design life. Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council is among those quoted.

Explore Northern Michigan

Outdoors with Coggin Heeringa: Sunshine on the Maples (audio, 3 min): Interlochen Public Radio, October 2026. Why the sunny side of a maple can blaze red while the shaded side is still yellow or green: trees make red pigment in fall, and sunlight drives it, possibly as a kind of sunscreen while the leaf shuts down.

Tiny village between Petoskey and the Mackinac Bridge is perfect for a daytrip: MLive, October 2026.

Northern Michigan’s sinkhole lakes are perfect for a fall float or SUP adventure: MLive, September 2026.

Michigan Moments: Indian River, Episode 177 (video): Facebook reel. The Burt Lake Scenic Tower, where visitors in the 1920s paid to climb for a view of three lakes at once.

Proxy Evidence for Easterly Winds in Glacial Lake Algonquin, from the Black River Delta: Vader et al., Michigan State University, 2013. About 13,000 years ago, Glacial Lake Algonquin covered much of northern Lower Michigan, leaving the higher ground as islands. The Black River built a large delta into that lake, and its old shorelines are still visible far inland today. (Technical paper; the maps are the highlight.)