Earlier this summer, Alice Ogden-Nussbaum was checking on a gill net she had set a day earlier in Lake Mendota’s deepest waters. As she rolled the curtain of net up out of the lake, a …
Lake Mendota
Clear Water? Yes. Green Scum? Also yes. What’s Going on Out There?
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 …
Study Finds Link Between Climate Change and Longer “Dead Zones” in Lakes
A new study in the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences is linking climate change to yet another environmental impact – longer lasting “dead zones” In lakes. According to the study, warm summer weather is …
Study: Stories of Invasive Species Often Begin with Undetected “Sleeper Populations”
When an invasive species overruns an ecosystem, it is often assumed that the organism recently arrived at its new home and rapidly took over. But a report published in the journal, BioScience, says that many …
Winter in Wisconsin: Life on Ice
For those of us lucky enough to live where our lakes freeze in the winter, one of the true joys of the season is getting out on the ice. Suddenly, a space that was only …
Will Madison’s Lakes Get Ice for Christmas?
If you’ve been checking the forecast for Christmas Eve here in Wisconsin, you’ve no doubt seen that a bit of a cold snap is on its way. While the past several days have hovered just …
Learn Your Lakes. What’s a Watershed?
Last week was the first time in a while that hunkering down at home for days on end was a response to weather and not a decision driven by spiking COVID numbers. Here in south/central …
Guest Post: An Invasive Species and An Education on An Ever-Changing Lake
by Julia Buskirk – In 2015, Petra Wakker began her college experience alongside Lake Mendota. She was no stranger to this waterway—before walking alongside the lake on her way to classes at UW-Madison, Wakker had …
Socially Distanced Science: Head-Hunting at Home!
Back in March of this year, just as it was becoming clear that “business as usual” was about to be a thing of the past, Petra Wakker walked into Room 101 of Hasler Lab and …
Guest Post: Why Lake Mendota is Both First (and Fourth) in the Yahara Chain of Lakes
Holding History, a UW-Madison-based project, helps students explore how cultural knowledge is made and preserved and share what they learn with broader audiences. Their series, Water Lines, is produced by 2019 Trout Lake Station summer …