by Steve Carpenter If climate change was the star of the recently concluded Paris Climate Conference (COP21), ecology played a key supporting role. At COP21, 195 nations agreed to hold global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and, by 2050, to reduce emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases to a level that land and …
Field Samples is a Q&A with aquatic researchers. Today graduate student, Sarah Stevens, talks computer programming and microbes in lakes. Sarah will give a public lecture on her work today at noon in the Water Science & Engineering Lab as part of the Center for Limnology’s weekly Wednesday seminar. Who are you, where are you …
Do not underestimate the babbling brook. When it comes to greenhouse gases, these bucolic water bodies have the potential to create a lot of hot air. According to a new analysis in the journal Ecological Monographs, by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues, the world’s rivers and streams pump about 10 times more …
Happy Fish Fry Day, when Wisconsin (and your trusty blog) put fish on the menu. Today’s offering – Ellen Hamann’s excellent post, originally written for the Canadian Science Publishing website on her “Fish on the Run” project. Enjoy as a scientist delves into the world of outreach and kinda, sorta likes it! So, you wrote …
A new study says that, despite dozens of locks and dams and backwater habitats that slow it’s flow, the Upper Mississippi River isn’t good at retaining the nitrates that run into its waters from intensively farmed states like Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa. Published July 12th in Environmental Research Letters, the study finds that just 12.5% …
Water is essential to our lives and those of future generations, but big changes, like a warming world, are bringing big challenges. Imagining positive futures for our waters and communities and sharing those visions is one way everyone can be part of the conversation to build them. We are excited to announce the “Our Waters, …
by Jenny Seifert Using a tool similar to a computer game, Melissa Motew is peering into the future. Motew is a modeler. She uses computers and mathematics to simulate ecosystems and make sense of nature. Her task is to shed light on what the Madison area’s environment could be like by the year 2070 and …
Happy Fish Fry Day! We promise to get back to our “Fishes of Wisconsin” challenge soon, but breaking news has forced it’s way into our news cycle – for the first time ever, scientists have tracked the American eel’s migration to its spawning grounds. The American eel is awesome, as we’ve explained before. And now we …
[View the story “UW-Madison Students on “Island Time” – Part 2″ on Storify]
[View the story “UW-Madison Students On “Island Time,” Part 1″ on Storify]