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 …
The sun rises over the skyline. A boat speeds across the open water. Music by The Who blasts in the background as a young scientist looks through an iridescent green test tube. These lines don’t describe the opening credits to a hit crime drama on TV, they’re the opening paragraph of an article written by …
This is what an invasion looks like. Last fall, students in a UW-Madison undergraduate limnology lab found invasive zebra mussels living in Lake Mendota for the first time. Later that year, when we pulled the Hasler Lab pier out of the water for the winter, we only found two, maybe three, mussels per leg of …
Earlier this year, Jake Vander Zanden rented his house out in Madison, packed his things, and headed with his family for a sabbatical in New Zealand. Under the auspices of a Fulbright scholarship, Jake is at the University of Waikato, studying ‘dead zones’ in lakes, where pollution reduces oxygen making it impossible for parts of …
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: (press contacts at bottom of story) MADISON — In the fall of 2009, a group of University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduates made a startling discovery in the waters off the campus shoreline. Spiny water fleas, a type of invasive zooplankton believed to be suited only to cooler lakes in more northern climates, turned …
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 …
Last year at this time, we asked you to help us monitor Lake Mendota, as we worried that we’d missed its “clear-water” window. We’re happy to report that, in 2016, we’re nearing a 6 meter Secchi depth and seeing lots of daphnia in our nets. Will this be a clear spring for Madison’s lakes? Stay …
It looks like ice-off is only a couple days away on Madison’s lakes. Before we hit the completely open water season, though, here’s a look back at some semi-frozen fieldwork from early March. Graduate student, Jake Walsh, shares his experience coring Lake Mendota’s sediment layers… by Jake Walsh The past couple of Mondays I’ve been out …
Down in the basement of the Water Sciences and Engineering Lab, right next door to us here at the Center for Limnology, sits an aquatic ecosystem with one crazy food web. In the experimental habitat, four different species of fishes – zebrafish, guppies, bluegill and fathead minnows – are feasting on a scientifically measured diet …