Seasonal median daily water depths for study wetlands in the Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge, the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway, the North Temperate Lakes Long-term Research area, and the Upper Mississippi River study area from 2008-2012

Abstract/Summary

To relate water levels in our study wetlands to temperature, precipitation, wetland water depth, and amphibian calling activity, we installed one pressure logger in the deepest spot we could find in each wetland. Soon after thawing conditions allowed, we drove a plastic pipe (anchor pipe) into the sediments at the deepest location and secured another pipe to it that contained one pressure logger (Global Water Model 14 and 15 [College Station, TX, USA] or Onset Computer Corporation Model U20-001-04 [Bourne, MA, USA]) suspended approximately 2.5 cm above the sediments. We installed additional individual pressure loggers in the upper part of the logger pipes (in air) at select locations to measure barometric pressure for calibrating the submerged loggers’ readings. We measured pressure once per hour and used software supplied by the logger manufacturers to upload and convert data to depth at the end of each season.

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