by Neil Coughlan and Andy Stevens Late one night, Andy Stevens, then a Center for Limnology graduate student, pulled a minnow trap out of the water off of the Hasler Lab pier in Lake Mendota. In the glare of his flashlight, Stevens could see the already familiar clusters of zebra mussels colonizing the wire mesh …
by Riley Steinbrenner Week Eleven After spending the first part of their summer working with the Citizen Lake Monitoring program—which recruits lakeside-dwelling citizens to monitor water clarity using a Secchi disk—the Aquatic Invasive Species crew have spent their last few weeks recording plant populations on surrounding lakes by taking point-intercept surveys, or sampling at predetermined …
Lake Monona is crystal clear, while Mendota stays murky and, on Wednesday, we asked you to help us monitor Lake Mendota as we wait to see if the native zooplankton, daphnia pulicaria, can rally and clear up the situation after being decimated by a tiny invasive predator called the spiny water flea. Read that previous …
Happy Holidays from us here at the CFL and the brilliant folks at the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute (especially Tim Campbell), who put together a delightful ode to some less-than-delightful residents of our inland waters. Enjoy! On the twelfth day of Christmas, a canal brought to me: Canals have been a significant source …
Folks over at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources have an excellent blog called “Live from the Lakes” featuring a series called “Lake of the Month” and, this month, that lake will be no stranger to anyone who follows our work. Sparkling Lake, up in Vilas County, received a nice write-up, featuring research spearheaded by …
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact: Gretchen Hansen, 608.221.6330, Gretchen.Hansen@wisconsin.gov Zebra mussels. Asian carp. Kudzu. Chances are you recognize these names as belonging to invasive species — plants or animals that are relocated from their native habitat to a foreign land, only to prove so prolific that they take over their new home. Except that’s not how …
Carol Warden, our aquatic invasive species specialist up at Trout Lake Station sent in this note about her work “up north” this summer. With summer well underway, aquatic invasive species (AIS) are once again a hot topic in the Northwoods. With things like rainbow smelt, Eurasian water milfoil and rusty crayfish moving in to Wisconsin’s …
The weather keeps alternating between chilly and warm as Lindsey Sargent, a graduate student from the University of Notre Dame, steers our small boat out into Star Lake in northern Wisconsin’s Vilas County. We’re on the hunt for the invasive rusty crayfish. Today, Lindsey is out collecting crayfish to bring back to Trout Lake Station, …
by Colin Smith Year two of the Crystal Lake Mixing Project’s rainbow smelt (Osmerus mordax) eradication efforts have officially begun. The project is testing a new method of removing cold water invasive fish from a lake inhabited by warm water tolerant native species. Essentially, the experiment involves big trampoline-like air bladders that rise and fall …
When it comes to moving in to Wisconsin lakes, aquatic invasive species have a preferred mode of transport – one that often involves an outboard motor. Scientists at the UW-Madison Center for Limnology and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources are in the middle of a five year study exploring the spread and distribution of …