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 …
Jake Vander Zanden
Training Scientists to Be Better Science Communicators
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 …
Is Lake Mendota’s Newest Invasive Species Poised to Explode?
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 …
New Zealand Q&A: Jake Vander Zanden Talks Dead Zones, Cows & Haka Dances
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 …
Zebra Mussels Found In Lake Mendota
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 …
Fish Fry Day: Daphnia Update & Perch (H2O) Purifiers?
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 …
It’s Spring 2016! Help Us Monitor Mendota’s Clear-Water Phase
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 …
Researchers Get to the Bottom (& Beyond) of Lake Mendota Invasive Species
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 …
Limnology in the Lab: Guppies Eating Swordfish, Bluegill Eating Shrimp
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, …
Field Samples: Spiny Water Fleas, Lake Mendota, and Green Water
Field Samples is a weekly Q&A asking researchers what they’ve been up to and what they’ve learned. Today, CFL grad student, Jake Walsh, talks Lake Mendota and the invasive spiny water flea. Who are you, where …