by Mike Spear In September 2015, a single zebra mussel about the size of a fingernail sent alarm through the Center for Limnology. (CFL). It signaled the arrival of one of the world’s most notorious invasive species in our own Lake Mendota, and it was big news. Today, zebra mussels carpet the rocky bottom of …
by Riley Steinbrenner Week Five It’s that time of the summer when independent, undergraduate research projects are underway! For my housemate, UW biology undergraduate Matt Chotlos, invasive rusty crayfish has been the focus of his. Rusty crayfish are finicky little creatures that have wreaked havoc on many Wisconsin lakes since their invasion in the mid-20th …
by Riley Steinbrenner Last week, I canoed out on Nichols Lake with Carol and Linden in search of spiny water flea tails! Click the right arrow under the picture to scroll through the slides. [Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”11″ gal_title=”Linden Carol 6/8″]
A recent study in the journal, Ecosystems, says that, when it comes to invasive species, it’s time to think bigger. While the movement of species from their native ranges to exotic lands is a major component of global ecosystem change, the authors contend, too often the scientific study of these invasive species is, well, local. …
In the fall of 2009, a tiny aquatic creature known as the spiny water flea showed up in a lake where it had never before been seen. At first, students in the UW-Madison undergraduate limnology class didn’t know what they were pulling up from Lake Mendota in their plankton nets. But professor Jake Vander Zanden …
Sorry to dig up old bog posts twice in a row, but this little fish popped up on our “Fishes of Wisconsin” Challenge and, well, here we are again – at the end of a long work week and looking forward to all things fried on Wisconsin menus. That’s right, it’s the day of our …
by AnnaKay Kruger Joe Bevington leans over the side of the boat and eyes the dense weeds in the water below us, watching green, long-feathered arms of Eurasian water milfoil move indolently with the current. The UW-Madison undergraduate wields a long rake that he drags along the lake bottom, twirling tendrils of plant matter around …
A recent study authored by our former postdoc and PhD student, Gretchen Hansen, reports that an intensive invasive-species trapping experiment had paid off for Sparkling Lake in northern Wisconsin. Not only did our researchers put a big dent in the rusty crayfish population but, four years later, they’re still being kept in check naturally. Click …
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, …