Illinois Natural History Survey Reports

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I LLINOIS
NATURAL
HI STORY
S U R V E Y R e p o r t s
Spring 2002
No. 371
I N S I D E
Data Management and
the Illinois River Deci-sion
Support System
2
The Freshwater Mussels
of Illinois (The Missis-sippi,
Illinois, Wabash,
and Ohio Rivers)
3
Waterfowl Populations
in the Illinois Valley
4
Asian Carp in the Up-per
Mississippi River
System
6
Exotic Plankton in
Large River Systems
7
Aquatic Resource
Monitoring in the Upper
Mississippi River Basin
8
Species Spotlight:
Paddlefi sh
10
Naturalist's Apprentice:
Ahead of Them All
11
Continued on back page
The Illinois Natural History Survey has a long history of research on the Illinois River. Here
the Anax, a fl oating laboratory staffed by INHS scientists, is anchored in the Illinois River in
the 1930s. Photo from INHS Image Archives
This special issue of Illinois
Natural History Survey Reports is
published to highlight some of the
biotic research and monitoring of
the Illinois River ecosystem that
illustrates the unique challenges
and opportunities emerging for
river restoration. The Illinois
River basin is the only large wa-tershed
occurring almost entirely
within our borders. The river
starts southwest
of Chicago
at the confl u-ence
of the Des
Plaines and
Kankakee rivers
and fl ows 272.9
miles across the
state to the Mis-sissippi
River
at Grafton. It
is of unique
importance be-cause
it acts as
an aquatic gate-way
between
the Great Lakes
and Mississippi
River ecosys-tems
through a
connecting canal
built during the
late 1890s. It is
also unique be-cause
the river valley below Hen-nepin
once carried the Mississippi
River, and thus has a wider and
more developed fl oodplain than
might be expected for a river of
its size.
Stephen A. Forbes, the found-ing
Chief of the Illinois Natural
History Survey, began studies of
INHS Studies of the Illinois River
the Illinois River in the 1870s.
He reported that 85% of the fi sh
species found in the state occurred
in the Illinois River. In 1908, fi sh
yields in the lower Illinois made
up 10% of the U.S. fi sh catch.
Without a doubt this was one of
the more productive river ecosys-tems
in the nation.
There is renewed interest in
the Illinois River system and
efforts are now being aimed at
rehabilitating the river to an eco-logically
functional system. This
restoration must occur in the face
of numerous human-induced dis-turbances
associated with urban
and rural land uses, dikes along
the river proper, and locks and
dams for navigation. The role
of the INHS in this ongoing and
long-term effort has been and will
continue to be to provide a sci-entifi
c basis for management and
rehabilitation actions, and moni-toring
our progress will permit
any midcourse corrections.
Although we should not de-lude
ourselves into believing that
we can or perhaps even should
return the river to its pre-Colum-bian
pristine state, the mighty
Illinois and its contiguous lands
can again act as a functioning
ecosystem with many of its for-mer
aesthetic, recreational, bio-logically
diverse, scientifi c, and
ecological service values. The
seven articles contained within