“Under mostly sunny skies and temperatures hovering near 30 degrees, a three-man crew from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the DNR motored across the bay in a flat-bottomed boat looking for promising sites to sample.

 

A scientist at the University of Notre Dame pioneered the technique of using DNA to search for populations of Asian carp. But the first step is far from rocket science:

 

One member of the crew stretched in a nearly prone position over the side of the boat and dipped a 2-liter plastic bottle into the 40-degree water. The driver read out GPS coordinates, the water temperature and the depth. The third man from the crew scribbled down the information.

 

The samples are processed in Green Bay and then packed with dry ice and sent to a Fish and Wildlife Service laboratory in La Crosse, where the DNA sequencing is done and water is matched with known DNA specimens of the two carp species. The samples will be queued up with hundreds of other potential carp samples from Illinois and elsewhere.”

Recent research on Great Lakes contaminants has shown that microplastics – small beads of plastic used in many exfoliants, toothpastes, and other products – are contributing to pollution levels. As a result, mayors near the Great Lakes are calling on manufacturers to remove the plastics from their products. 

From TheObserver.ca: 

“The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, representing more than 100 Canadian and U.S. cities, is urging industry and governments to have microplastics removed from personal care products.

Its call came as a study on microplastic pollution was published based on sampling last summer on Lake Huron, Erie and Superior led by Sherri Mason, a professor at the State University of New York at Fredonia.

‘It takes that kind of initiative to get things to change,’ she said of the mayor’s support for the issue.
‘It’s not so much about cleaning it up, as it is about stopping it at its source.’

Mason returned to the lakes for seven weeks this summer to collect more samples, including one from the St. Clair River at Sarnia that will be analyzed as the study continues.

Samples taken in 2012 included green, blue and purple coloured spheres, similar to polypropylene and polyethylene microbeads in consumer products, such as facial cleaners.”

Read the complete article at the link above.

Following last year’s record low water levels in the Great Lakes, and in Lake Michigan and Lake Huron specifically, this year’s rains have helped push those levels back towards the historical average. 

From MLive.com: 

“Heavy October rain could help Lake Michigan and Lake Huron continue to rise toward the long term average water level. Lake Michigan – Huron is still 15 inches below the long term average, but is 11 inches higher than this time last year. Slowly the lake level is increasing. The lake levels will likely fall over the next four months. This is a normal cycle. If the lakes don’t fall as much as normal this winter, the lakes are set up to be higher next summer than this summer…

 

All of this rain can help Lake Michigan – Huron not fall as much as usual in November.”

A recent article in the Journal-Sentinel online reports that Asian carp DNA have been found for the first time in the Lake Michigan waters near Wisconsin. 

From JSonline: 

“The single positive water sample for the jumping silver carp was taken May 31 in Sturgeon Bay near Door County’s Potawatomi State Park.

 

The sampling was part of a Lake Michigan-wide survey looking for evidence of Eurasian ruffe, a different type of invasive fish species. The water sample was not screened for the presence of Asian carp DNA until this fall, and the DNR did not get word of the positive result until last week, said Mike Staggs, DNR’s fishery director.

 

The sample was the only positive found among the 282 water samples taken from Wisconsin’s Lake Michigan waters this year as part of an invasive fish survey conducted by government crews and researchers from the University of Notre Dame and The Nature Conservancy. Fifty of those of samples were taken in the Sturgeon Bay area.

 

Nobody is sure at this point what to make of this single piece of microscopic evidence.

There are several potential sources for the genetic scraps, including boat hulls, bird feces, or contaminated bait buckets. It could, of course, also signal the presence of a live fish.”

“Take a dip in lakes Erie, Huron, or Superior and you will be swimming in more than just water. According to a recently published study, these lakes contain an unexpectedly large amount of floating plastic debris. Even more surprising, much of what the researchers found were microplastic fragments and pellets like the kind used in toothpastes and facial and body scrubs. At less than one millimeter, these tiny pieces of plastic are too small to be filtered out at wastewater treatment facilities before the water is released into the lakes.

Researchers from 5 Gyres Institute and State University of New York (SUNY) Fredonia made the discovery in 2012 after collecting a total of 21 samples from the lakes. They found plastics in all but one sample. Of the three lakes, Lake Erie had the highest concentrations of plastics, roughly 90 percent of the total amount measured. The authors speculate that the high concentrations may be the result of currents carrying the plastics from the cities of Detroit, Cleveland, and Erie. Back in the lab, further inspection revealed that along with the microplastics, eight of the samples contained coal ash and coal fly ash (produced by coal-burning power plants).”

The Illinois Science Education Conference, recently held in Tinley Park, featured more than 150 presentations, symposiums, and exhibits aimed at providing resources and professional development opportunities for science teachers throughout the state. Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant’s education team was among the many exhibitors participating, and offered materials and presentations to help introduce Great Lakes literacy principles to the teachers present. 

IISG’s Robin Goettel and Terri Hallesy led two presentations to give teachers information and guidance on getting their students interested in Great Lakes science and stewardship. Several educational resources were also made available for the teachers to utilize in their classes. 

Anjanette and Corrie staffed two tables in the exhibit hall. One focused on AIS and featured “Nab the Aquatic Invader” information, invasive species watch cards, games, and suggested alternatives to releasing classroom pets into the wild (the Habitattitude^TM project). The second table focused on several different curricula and stewardship programs offered by IISG. CDs of Fresh and Salt and Greatest of the Great Lakes were available, as well as flash drives with The Medicine Chest and Sensible Disposal of Unwanted Meds. Teachers were very excited to receive these because they were so compact and comprehensive, with several asking if they could give a second one to their colleagues.

Two Great Lakes Restoration Initiative projects were highlighted in our displays – Great Lakes Organisms in Trade Initiative-Research, Outreach and Education and Undo the Great Lakes Chemical Brew.