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Kevin Wehrly
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Ecosystem Science and Management
Geospatial Data Sciences
Water
Conservation + Restoration
CV
Office
Rm G250, 400 N Ingalls Bldg
Websites
About
Kevin Wehrly is Director of the Institute for Fisheries Research (IFR), a research collaborative between the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the University of Michigan. Research at IFR focuses on the large-scale ecology of aquatic systems to inform management and conservation decision-making. We use standardized sampling methods and landscape-based approaches to understand angler behavior, fishery dynamics, species-habitat relationships, environmental conditions, and vulnerability to climate and land-use change. Work at IFR also focuses on the development of online databases, applications, and decision support tools to improve information transfer to practitioners, managers, and policy makers.
Publications
Flood, P.J., K. E. Schiller, K.B.S. King, A.D. Runyon, K.E. Wehrly, and K.M. Alofs. 2025. Long-term and regional-scale data reveal divergent trends of different climate variables on fish body size over 75 years. Global Change Biology 31, no.11:e70584. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.70584
King, K., J. Schell, K.E. Wehrly, M. Lenard, R. Singer, H. López-Fernández, A. Thomer, and K. Alofs. 2025. Community science helps digitize 77 years of fish and habitat data for thousands of lakes in Michigan, USA. Scientific Data, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-05241-z
Alofs, K.M., and K.E. Wehrly. 2025. Fish mass mortality events in northern temperate lakes are happening later in the year than in the past. Ecosphere https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70182
Hansen, G.J.A., K.E. Wehrly, K. Vitense, J. R. Walsh, and P.C. Jacobson. 2022. Quantifying resilience of lakes to climate and land use change to prioritize conservation across scales. Ecosphere. 13(7): e4172, https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.417218.
Cooper, A.R., K.E. Wehrly, S-K. Yeh, D. M. Infante. 2022. Influence of spatial extent on current and future threat evaluation for imperiled fluvial fishes and mussels in Michigan, USA. Water 14:3463. https://doi.org/10.3390/w14213464
Loewen, C.J.G., D.A. Jackson, C. Chu, K. M. Alofs, G.J.A. Hansen, A.E. Honsey, C.K. Minns, and K.E. Wehrly. 2022. Bioregions are predominantly climatic for fishes of northern inland lakes. Global Ecology and Biogeography 31: 233-246.
Riseng, C.R., K.E. Wehrly, L. Wang, E.S. Rutherford, J.E. McKenna, L.B. Johnson, L.A. Mason, C. Castiglione, T.P. Hollenhorst, B.L. Sparks-Jackson, S.P. Sowa 2018. Ecosystem classification and mapping of the Laurentian Great Lakes. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 75: 1693-1712.
Wang, L., Riseng, C.M., Mason, L.A., Wehrly, K.E., Rutherford, E.S., McKenna, J.E., Castiglione, C., Johnson, L.B., Infante, D.M., Sowa, S., Robertson, M., Schaeffer, J., Khoury, M., Gaiot, J., Hollenhorst, T., Brooks, C., Coscarelli, M. 2015. A spatial classification and database for management, research, and policy making: The Great Lakes aquatic habitat framework. Journal of Great Lakes Research 41(2):584-596.
Education
PhD, University of Michigan (Natural Resources)
MS, University of Michigan (Natural Resources)
BS, Ohio Northern University (Biology)