Little Blake Lake Aquatic Plant Management Plan

The Limnological Institute will assess and characterize the current aquatic plant community structure, littoral aquatic macroinvertebrate community structure, and shoreline land use for Little Blake Lake in Polk County. An aquatic plant management plan will be developed including a comprehensive management strategy focusing on the control and prevention of exotic plants and enhancing the native plant community. All aquatic plant transect data including reporting the Relative Abundance & Frequency of Occurrence and other basic statistics including the Floristic Quality Index, will be summarized and reported in table format in the final report. Aquatic macroinvertebrate monitoring will be conducted twice in 2004 to assess possible impacts of monotypic aquatic plant beds on the density and diversity of aquatic insects. The macroinvertebrate community structure for all samples shall be broken down to Lowest Paractical Taxonomic Unit LPTU using Hilsenhoff's most current taxonomic key for each habitat type (treated vs. untreated for the following: high density crispus beds, mixed beds, and native beds). A unit independent measure of the variability of samples coming from each specific habitat type (six in all) using the coefficient of variation reported in table format shall also be provided. The methodology for the shoreline/riparian zone survey shall be submitted to Jim Cahow, by June 15, 2004 and summarized in the project final report. Recommendations on how to decrease negative impacts from existing shoreland management will be made to the Lake District and property owners. Shoreline restoration goals will be established, impacted shoreland areas contributing nonpoint source pollution will be prioritized and exotic species will be mapped.

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