University of Wisconsin–Madison

Month: June 2020

Socially Distant Science: Coronavirus Means Summer at Trout Lake Looks Different This Year

by Cassie Gauthier – If you were to walk around Trout Lake Station on the first week of June most summers, you would find 40 or so people arriving on station for a summer of living in the six cabins, working in the lab, and taking trips to nearby lakes both at day and night …

Water We Talking About? How Big Can a Bullfrog Get?

Happy hot and humid Friday! It’s time again for Water We Talking About – when kids send us freshwater-related questions and we track down real-life scientists to answer them. This week, we had to put out an in-house call for questions and our fellow CFLers didn’t disappoint. Alex, the son of Trout Lake Station director, …

In Fight Against Invasive Species, Can the Cure Be Worse Than the Disease?

by Mary Magnuson, University Communications Invasive Eurasian water milfoil is flourishing in Wisconsin’s lakes, sometimes outcompeting native plants and creating floating mats that cause problems for people, boats and property values. But new research shows that the benefits of using one type of historical lake-wide herbicide treatment may be outweighed by the costs to native …

Water We Talking About? A 12-Year-Old Makes a Video About Mussels

Happy Friday! It’s time again for Water We Talking About – when kids send us freshwater-related questions and we track down real-life scientists to answer them. This week, though, Madeline from Madison threw us a curve ball – she didn’t send a question, she sent a video full of all sorts of facts about zebra …

Like Counting Fish in a Barrel – eDNA Shows Promise in Estimating Sportfish Populations

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Anglers often lament how hard it can be to land a fish for dinner, but the tougher job usually falls to fisheries managers, who have set sustainable catch limits for the fishes we love to harvest. Traditionally, the size of a fish population is estimated using “mark and recapture” studies. To get …

Guest Post: Why Lake Mendota is Both First (and Fourth) in the Yahara Chain of Lakes

Holding History, a UW-Madison-based project, helps students explore how cultural knowledge is made and preserved and share what they learn with broader audiences. Their series, Water Lines, is produced by 2019 Trout Lake Station summer student, Julia Buskirk. Story and images by Julia Buskirk Lake Mendota, like most bodies of water, is part of a …