Landscape at a Glance

Physical & Biotic Environment | Socioeconomic Conditions | Considerations for Planning & Management

Species

Species of Greatest Conservation Need

The following species are listed according to their probability of occurring in the Central Lake Michigan Coastal Ecological Landscape, based on the findings in the Wisconsin Wildlife Action Plan.

Community opportunities

Natural community management opportunities

The Central Lake Michigan Coastal Ecological Landscape contains opportunities to manage for the following natural communities, based on the findings in the Wildlife Action Plan (originally presented by the Ecosystem Management Team).

Description of Terms Used to Define Opportunities for Protection, Restoration and/or Management of Natural Communities by Ecological Landscapes

Major
A major opportunity for sustaining the natural community in the Ecological Landscape exists, either because many significant occurrences of the natural community have been recorded in the landscape or major restoration activities are likely to be successful maintaining the community's composition, structure, and ecological function over a longer period of time.

Important
Although the natural community does not occur extensively or commonly in the Ecological Landscape, one to several occurrences do occur and are important in sustaining the community in the state. In some cases, important opportunities may exist because the natural community may be restricted to just one or a few Ecological Landscapes within the state and there may be a lack of opportunities elsewhere.

Present
The natural community occurs in the Ecological Landscape, but better management opportunities appear to exist in other parts of the state.

General opportunities

General management opportunities ¹

Lake Michigan forms the eastern boundary and is a dominant feature of the Central Lake Michigan Coastal Ecological Landscape. Most of the immediate shoreline is upland and has undergone extensive development to serve agricultural, residential, recreational and urban-industrial uses. Many important protection and management opportunities are associated with Lake Michigan shoreline features such as beaches and dunes, ridge and swale complexes, alvar, ravines with native conifers, coastal forests and marshes and migratory bird concentration areas.

Lower Green Bay and the mouth of the Fox River comprise a highly disturbed but rich ecosystem that includes the shallow waters of the Lower Bay, islands that support rookeries of fish-eating birds and extensive coastal marshes and other wetland communities now concentrated west of the Fox River's mouth and along the Bay's west shore. Important marsh complexes of Lower Green Bay include Long Tail Point, Little Tail Point, Peats Lake and, east of the Fox River, Point Au Sable. All of these are heavily used by migratory and resident waterfowl and other birds. In recent decades the marsh vegetation has undergone a drastic shift in dominance from diverse assemblages of native species to the highly invasive non-native common reed, narrow-leaved cat-tail and hybrid cat-tail. Protection of the remaining coastal marshes is a top priority, as is monitoring the impacts and effectiveness of the ongoing large-scale restoration attempts.

A majority of the natural vegetation remaining in the western part of the landscape is associated with the Wolf River floodplain. Significant acreages of lowland hardwood forest, shrub swamp and marsh are present, along with smaller amounts of sedge meadow and mesic hardwood forest. The entire floodplain of the Wolf River merits protection, as almost everything around it is now heavily developed. Similarly, the only extensive areas of natural vegetation in the eastern part of the landscape are several isolated but large wetlands in southern Door and Kewaunee counties and at several other locations to the south and west. Most of these wetlands are forested, with stands of swamp hardwoods, white cedar, tamarack and floodplain forest. Much of this land is in multiple private ownerships, with relatively few large tracts. There is a need to conduct field surveys to identify sites that offer the best opportunities for management and protection partnerships.

Lake Michigan is used heavily by waterfowl and other waterbirds, and its shoreline is important for migratory birds of many kinds, including waterfowl, loons, grebes, gulls, terns, shorebirds, raptors and passerines. Providing or maintaining habitat for nesting, migratory and wintering birds along and near Lake Michigan and Green Bay are important conservation goals. Management opportunities include maintaining and restoring the integrity of locations on Lake Michigan and its shoreline that receive heavy bird use, as well as reforesting open locations along the shoreline for use as migratory stopover sites for land birds. There is also a need to provide stopover habitats at inland locations.

Several miscellaneous features are of at least local importance in the Central Lake Michigan Coastal. Examples that represent management opportunities include river and stream corridors, inland lakes, Ephemeral Ponds, remnant maple-beech forests, pine-oak forests and Surrogate Grasslands, the latter include some Great Lakes shoreline sites.

1. The text presented here is a summarized version of a longer section developed for the Ecological Landscapes of Wisconsin Handbook.

Maps

Central Lake Michigan Coastal maps

Printable maps from the Ecological Landscapes of Wisconsin Handbook. These maps are in PDF format and will open in a new window.

1. Finley's Vegetation of the Mid-1800s
2. Land Cover of the Mid-1800's
3. Landtype Associations (LTAs)
4. Public Land Ownership, Easements and Private Land Enrolled in Forest Tax Programs
5. Ecologically Significant Places
6. Exceptional and Outstanding Resource Waters and 303(d) Degraded Waters (2010 Update)
7. Dams
8. WISCLAND Land Cover (1992)
9. Soil Regions
10. Relative Tree Density in the Mid-1800s
11. Population Density, Cities, and Transportation

Also see the statewide maps from the Ecological Landscapes Handbook.

LTAs

Central Lake Michigan Coastal Landtype Associations

Landtype Associations (LTAs) are units of the National Hierarchical Framework of Ecological Units (NHFEU), a hierarchical ecological land classification system. LTAs are much smaller than Ecological Landscapes, ranging in size from 10,000 and 300,000 acres. In Wisconsin, they are usually based on glacial features like individual moraines or outwash plains. LTAs can be very useful for planning at finer scales within an Ecological Landscape.

The following are the LTAs associated with the Central Lake Michigan Coastal Ecological Landscape. The Central Lake Michigan Coastal LTA map [PDF] can be used to locate these LTAs. Clicking on an LTA in the list below will open a data table for that LTA in PDF format. Descriptions are included, where available.

• 212Zc13. Rosiere Moraines
• 212Za03. Leeman Plains
• 212Zc12. Alaska Moraines
• 212Zc09. Poland Moraines
• 212Zc10. Chapel Ridge
• 212Zb06. Green Bay Plains
• 212Za02. Embarrass Plains
• 212Zb03. Howard Ridges
• 212Zc05. Krok Plains
• 212Zb01. Fox River Valley
• 212Zc11. Two Creeks Moraines
• 212Zc04. Cooperstown Moraines
• 212Zb05. Preble Plains
• 212Za04. Murphy Corners Moraines
• 212Zb02. Freedom Plains
• 212Za05. Greenville Moraines
• 212Za06. Mosquito Hill Plains
• 212Za01. Manawa-Hortonville Moraines
• 212Zb04. Holland Plains
• 212Zc08. Wayside Moraines
• 212Zc02. Manitowoc Plains
• 212Zc03. Point Beach
• 212Zc01. Sheboygan Moraines
• 212Zc07. Hilbert Moraines
• 212Zc06. Collins Moraines