Back in April, 109 donors (and some generous matching grants) helped us raise $32,240 dollars during the UW-Madison’s annual “Day of the Badger” fundraising campaign. Every dollar went to our Student Support Fund and gave a group of amazing undergraduates summer fellowships. We wanted to share what your support meant to our students. Here’s what UW-Madison …
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 new arrivals aren’t nearly as impatient as this narrative implies. In fact, it is not uncommon for “sleeper populations” of …
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 …
Our summer science communication intern is back at it again. This week, Bethany Prochnow headed out into the field with a team of researchers looking for a tiny invasive crustacean…
Last Friday, my phone started “blowing up” with text messages about some sort of invasion at Hasler Lab and where, exactly, our new Go Pro camera could be found. Perhaps because I’ve recently binged-watched both seasons of Stranger Things, I pictured CFL staff and students jumping on their bikes and racing to the lab with …
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 …
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 …
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 are you from, and how did you get to where you are now? I’m Jake Walsh, a PhD student with …