Flathead Lake Is Part of Worldwide Study Montana's Flathead Lake was one of 100 lakes around the planet in a recent study on how warming surface temperatures on Earth affect lake ecosystems. The study at Flathead was reported by the University of Montana Flathead Lake Biological Station and Shawn Devlin, an aquatic ecologist (Photo above). The study was published in Nature's Scientific Reports and researchers collected long-term summertime temperatures at different depths, collected over 40 years, starting in 1970. In a news release, Devlin said, "One thing that made this study so remarkable is the scope. We were able to track the long-term surface and deep-water temperatures trends of each individual lake and insert that information into a much larger picture to uncover patterns that help us understand what's happening."