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Context: Biodiversity conservation for terrestrial species often emphasizes land protection to help maintain connectivity among habitat patches. However, conservation of aquatic and semi-aquatic species is challenging because aquatic species (e.g., fish) move among lakes using aquatic connections (e.g., streams, wetlands), whereas semi-aquatic species (e.g., amphibians) use both aquatic connections and upland habitats. Objectives: We applied the patch-matrix model to create an aquatic and semi-aquatic connectivity framework for lakes. We applied our framework using lakes in Michigan, USA to examine (1) the relationship between aquatic and semi-aquatic connectivity for lakes and (2) the extent to which protected areas encompass aquatic and semi-aquatic connectivity among lakes. Methods: We used principal component analysis to calculate aquatic and semi-aquatic connectivity scores for lakes. We then examined relationships among aquatic and semi-aquatic connectivity scores and existing protected areas (strict and multi-use). Results: Fewer than 3% of lakes had high scores for either aquatic or semi-aquatic connectivity. Connectivity scores were generally higher in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, which is heavily forested with greater land protection. Although lake protection was overall low (16 and 32% of lake watersheds in Michigan were ≥ 10% protected under strict and multi-use protection, respectively), highly connected lakes were generally more protected than less connected lakes. Conclusions: We propose using our aquatic and semi-aquatic connectivity framework to (1) identify and prioritize lakes for conservation that are likely to have high biodiversity and conservation value and (2) generate testable hypotheses for studying the integrated terrestrial-aquatic landscape under global change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wildfires are becoming larger and more frequent across much of the United States due to anthropogenic climate change. No studies, however, have assessed fire prevalence in lake watersheds at broad spatial and temporal scales, and thus it is unknown whether wildfires threaten lakes and reservoirs (hereafter, lakes) of the United States. We show that fire activity has increased in lake watersheds across the continental United States from 1984 to 2015, particularly since 2005. Lakes have experienced the greatest fire activity in the western United States, Southern Great Plains, and Florida. Despite over 30 years of increasing fire exposure, fire effects on fresh waters have not been well studied; previous research has generally focused on streams, and most of the limited lake‐fire research has been conducted in boreal landscapes. We therefore propose a conceptual model of how fire may influence the physical, chemical, and biological properties of lake ecosystems by synthesizing the best available science from terrestrial, aquatic, fire, and landscape ecology. This model also highlights emerging research priorities and provides a starting point to help land and lake managers anticipate potential effects of fire on ecosystem services provided by fresh waters and their watersheds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]