Environment

Invasives will be caught on screen for all to see

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By KEVIN DUFFY
Capital News Service
LANSING – Michigan researchers are building a time machine to fight freshwater invasive species. The project will let them navigate through a 150-year historical collection of plants and animals largely hidden among the storerooms of Great Lakes museums.
A $2.5 million federal grant will help move their collections from cupboards and shelves to a computer database through a process called digitization. Plant and animal specimens will be labeled and photographed for online access. A cooperative of 28 Great Lakes universities, including 11 in Michigan, will bypass the need for research staff to spend hours in a collection room pulling samples of North American fish, plants and mollusks. The project will allow online access to more than 1.7 million specimens, including 2,500 species, said Ken Cameron, who is leading the project and is director of the Wisconsin State Herbarium.

Health

Folks who eat fish tested, show high mercury levels

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By DANIELLE WOODWARD
Capital News Service
LANSING – Health authorities in Michigan are waiting for the results of tests for elevated levels of chemicals and metals in people who eat lots of Great Lakes fish. Blood and urine from volunteers in Michigan and two other states were tested for PCBs, pesticides, mercury, lead and cadmium. Each state focused on a community. Michigan tested anglers along the Detroit River and Saginaw Bay. Minnesota tested members of the Ojibwe tribe near Lake Superior.

Environment

New river reefs built to encourage fish spawning

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By KATIE AMANN
Capital News Service
LANSING – Whitefish, lake sturgeon and walleye will soon have a new place to breed. A team from Michigan Sea Grant and its research and industry partners is currently laying rock for a new spawning habitat at Harts Light in the St. Clair River. This new habitat will span four acres, which is about three times larger than the spawning reef built earlier this year at Pointe aux Chenes near Algonac. Another reef will be built in the Detroit River next year.

Environment

Woodsman, place that limb under water in a pond or a lake

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By BECKY McKENDRY
Capital News Service
LANSING – Low lake levels and wood loss are causing some fish to binge until they run out of food, according to recent research. Jereme Gaeta, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studied the relationship between bass and perch, predator and prey, as dropping water levels altered the habitat offered by submerged trees and wood. Fallen trees and wood create a coarse woody habitat submerged in lakes. “Woody habitat is great for many species of fish in terms of foraging for food,” Gaeta said. “It’s a place for algae to grow and bugs to live.”
Trees in lakes can also provide shelter.

Environment

Cold weather anglers flock to thick ice; effects of ice on fish mixed

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By DARCIE MORAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — In a few years, Michigan anglers might have the polar vortex to thank for good hauls. But in a few months, they might have it to blame for particularly disappointing catches. Fish experts are keeping a close eye on how winter conditions progress, a clue to how fish populations in the Great Lakes and Michigan’s inland lakes will fare. The recent cold and resulting ice might give some fish eggs a better chance of survival, Michael Hoff, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fish biologist, said. But other fish could die in droves due to lack of oxygen mixed with other stressors.

Environment

Ongoing walleye studies help DNR

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By EDITH ZHOU
Capital News Service
LANSING – The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is in its final sampling year of a tag-and-recapture study of the walleye population in the inland waterways of Northern Michigan. It’s part of ongoing research about the popular species by the Fisheries Division. “The studies have provided data on the exploitation rate of the population, walleye growth rates and the movements between waters,” said Edward Baker, manager of the Marquette Fisheries Research Station. Many of the state’s Great Lakes waters are world-famous for walleye. According to the DNR, the Lake Erie-Detroit River-Lake St.

Environment

Harbor dredging could stir up PCB-contaminated sediments

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By MAX KING
Capital News Service
LANSING – Dredging may be a solution to part of the Great Lakes low water problem, but it can also lead to contaminated sediments re-merging into the water, experts warn. A new law provides an additional $20.9 million for 58 emergency harbor dredging projects this year to help recreational and commercial boaters operate in low water levels. The most common contaminant in the bottom of the Great Lakes is polychlorinated biphenyls, also known as PCBs, according to the Department of Natural Resources. PCBs got into the water because of automotive industries near the lakes, said Andy Buchsbaum, director of the Great Lakes office of the National Wildlife Federation in Ann Arbor. “A lot of PCB-laced oil was used by the automobile industry before it was banned and “leaked into the ground and ultimately found its way into the Great Lakes,” he said.

Education

Teach a child to fish and, well, you know the rest

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By PATRICK LYONS
Capital News Service
LANSING — Project FISH is focused on teaching a new generation of anglers, hoping to reverse the decline in the sale of Michigan fishing licenses. The project teaches water ecology, fishing techniques, rules and ethics of fishing and other skills like cleaning and cooking. A Project FISH — Friends Involved in Sportsfishing Heritage — workshop will be held March 6-7 in East Lansing. Project FISH was started in 1995 by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Michigan United Conservation Clubs and the Great Lakes Fishery Trust, said Mark Stephens, the education program coordinator. Since then the program has spread to 37 other states.

Environment

NEMO's new mission: Find toxic algae blooms

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By MEHAK BANSIL
Capital News Service
LANSING—If it looks like a fish and swims like a fish, then it must be a fish. Unless it’s a pseudo-fish named NEMO, designed to monitor water temperature, oxygen levels, invasive algae populations and pollutants. For example, a robofish will be able to navigate independently and transmit information about the location of toxic algae blooms.
“We chose to fit these fish with sensors for toxic algae blooms, but I think other researchers will use this technology in the future to monitor different aspects of water quality,” Michigan State University zoology Professor Elena Litchman said. According to Litchman, excess nutrients and warmer temperatures create an ideal growth environment for algae, which release toxins that are dangerous to other aquatic organisms and humans. “Although it’s hard to remove these blooms, knowing where they are allows us to warn people not to go in those areas,” Litchman said.