Member Institutions:

• Bowling Green State U.
• Cleveland State U.
• Kent State U.
• Medical College of Ohio
• Miami U.
• The Ohio State U.
• Ohio U.
• University of Cincinnati
• University of Toledo
• Wright State U.
• Youngstown State U.

Research Interests

Tree biology and arboriculture

Dr. Carlson is active in a variety of projects in limnology. He is the author of a lake index that is widely used for the classification of lakes and reservoirs. He has also conducted research ranging from examining the chemical and biological factors that determine the structure of a biological community to using paleolimnological investigations to find out the effect of past manipulations. He has co-authored a monograph on reservoir management for drinking water quality.

He is developing an all-volunteer international water quality monitoring network. In a program called the Great American Secchi Dip-In, volunteer monitors take Secchi disk transparency readings in their lakes, reservoirs, rivers, and estuaries during a two week period in June and July. The results are used to develop maps of transparency and to detect regional changes in lake water quality. He has also co-authored a manual on monitoring techniques for volunteer lake monitoring.

Selected Publications:

• Carlson, R.E. 1977. A trophic state index for lakes. Limnology and Oceanography. 22:361-369.
• Schoenberg, S.A. and R.E. Carlson. 1984. Direct and indirect effects of zooplankton grazing on phytoplankton in a hypereutrophic lake. Oikos. 42: 291-302.
• Fritz, S.C. and R.E. Carlson. 1982. Stratigraphic diatom and chemical evidence for acid strip-mine lake recovery. Water, Air and Soil Pollution. 17:151-163.
• Reiter, M.A. and R.E. Carlson. 1986. Current velocity in streams and the composition of benthic algal mats. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. 43: 1156-1162.
• Barbiero, R., R.E. Carlson, and G.D. Cooke. 1988. The effects of a continuous application of aluminum sulfate on lotic benthic invertebrates. Lake and Reservoir Management. 4: 63-72.
• Palmstrom, N.S., R.E. Carlson and G.D. Cooke. 1988. Potential links between eutrophication and suspected carcinogens in drinking water. Lake and Reservoir Management 4: 1-15.
• Carlson, R.E. and J. Simpson. 1996. A Coordinator's Guide to Volunteer Lake Monitoring Methods. North American Lake Management Society. 96 pp.
• Carlson, R.E. 1997. The Secchi disk in black and white. LakeLine. 17: 14-15, 58-59
• Lee, J., M.R. Binkley, and R.E. Carlson. 1997. The Great American Dip-In: GIS contributes to national snapshot of lake-water transparency. GIS World. 10: 42-44.
• Jenerette, D. J. Lee, D. Waller, and R. Carlson. 1998. The effect of spatial dimensions on regionalization of lake water quality data. Proc. 8th Internat. Symp. On Spatial Data Handling. International Geographical Union. p. 256-265.
• Havens, K.E. and R.E. Carlson. 1998. Functional complementarity in plankton communities along a gradient of acid stress. Environmental Pollution. 101:427-436.
• Gerritsen, J., R.E. Carlson, D.L. Dycus, C. Faulkner, M. G.R. Gibson, John Harcom, and S.A. Markowitz. 1998. Lake and Reservoir Bioassessment and Biocriteria. U.S. EPA Office of Water. EPA 841-B-98-007. 202 pp.
• Carlson, R.E., S. Chapra, J. Gerritson, G. Gibson, S. Heiskary, J. Jones, M. Nozik, J. Simpson, E. Smeltzer. Nutrient Criteria Technical Guidance Manual: Lakes and Reservoirs. (Draft) U.S. EPA office of Water, Office of Science and Technology.

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