Earlier this fall, we asked some of the Center for Limnology’s alumni from the last several years to send us updates on what they were working on these days. A couple of those updates ended up in our annual newsletter (which you can read here), but we got so many updates, we didn’t have room …
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE [MADISON, WI] By Adam Hinterthuer and Madelyn Anderson – A report on more than forty years of research on Wisconsin lakes is highlighting some of the lessons scientists have learned about aquatic invasive species. For example, far more ecosystems are playing host to non-native species than were previously thought. However, the authors …
by Jake Vander Zanden — You may have noticed that, In the last week or so, the Madison lakes have been crystal clear, with visibility of up to 30 feet recorded in Lake Mendota by Center for Limnology researchers. But, in the last two days, (especially if you’ve been near a downwind shore of our …
In the Upper Midwest, the water temperature in a lake may be as different from the lake next door as one at the opposite end of the state. While this may save Midwesterners a long drive “up north” to find a lake cool enough to beat the summer heat, it also has important implications when …
When the tiny and invasive spiny water flea began appearing in University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers’ nets in 2009, scientists began to wonder how Lake Mendota, one of the most-studied lakes in the world, went from flea-free to infested seemingly overnight. Subsequent studies found the invader had persisted for years at low population densities that went …
Earlier this week, Center for Limnology director, Jake Vander Zanden, noted a startling difference in Madison’s two largest lakes, Mendota and Monona. The waters of Lake Monona, near where he lives, were crystal clear, while the waters along the shoreline of Lake Mendota, where he works, were green and murky. The two lakes are connected …
by Jake Walsh There is a fortunate silver-lining to those of us prone to making mistakes – they can be a powerful teaching tool. At a minimum, our mistakes teach us things we shouldn’t be doing. In the best cases, they help us better understand ourselves and how we work. Scientists are no strangers to …
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 …
As the year winds to a close, we’re taking a look back at some of the the CFL’s most popular blog posts from 2016. Here’s one originally published on March 21st about our researchers calculating the cost of a tiny invasive species and finding a very big impact. MADISON – A new study shows we’ve …
Last week on this blog, we wondered if Lake Mendota’s clear water phase was a thing of the past. You see, last year, the algae-eating native zooplankton, daphnia pulicaria were so diminished by predation from the invasive spiny water flea, that their numbers couldn’t grow large enough to keep algae from clouding our waters. Combined with …