The main bottleneck to further development of sustainable and intensive aquaculture in Midwest is improvement of larval fish rearing technologies and larval fish nutrition. The main objective of this project is to develop detailed protocols for larval largemouth bass rearing in indoor facilities that will help to support high survival and growth performance of this species in its young age.

One of the significant issues with urbanization and a rapidly changing climate is an increase in storm-runoff and the speed of stormwater reaching the existing drainage system. The drainage system is overburdened by the amount of flows during rainfall causing flash floods. Also, the untreated runoff is released to local water-bodies. The pollutants in urban runoff can cause eutrophication that severely affects the aquatic life and creates an imbalance in the eco-system. The rationale for this research is to confront this global issue through a local solution.

The motivations for this study are 1) To develop a sustainable urban drainage system through purifying parking lots and roofs. 2) To develop a design procedure as well as materials for constructing purifying parking lots or roofs. 3) To collaborate with construction firms and stakeholders in transforming the research into practice. 4) To promote the economic, social, and environment rewards due to the sustainable drainage system to all beneficiary’s like local community, retail and commercial firms in the southern Lake Michigan area.

This project aims to investigate the potential role of marine plastic debris as a vector for Perfluorinated Compounds (PFAS). Specific research questions are:

• To what extent do three common plastic types found in the environment act as a sink for select PFASs in Muskegon Lake?
• How important is the residence time of the materials present in these water bodies concerning the extent of PFAS accumulation?

This project aims to demonstrate the potential to use well-quantified niche shifts from established ‘avatar invaders’ to develop plausible distributions for similar emerging invaders. The study uses the red swamp crayfish Procambarus clarkii as an ‘avatar invader’ and the yabby Cherax destructor, as a data-poor emerging invader.

The objectives of this project are:

• To develop optimal in vitro methodology for Asian carp muscle hydrolysis using largemouth bass (LMB) endogenous digestive enzymes obtained from adult LMB.
• To evaluate the effect of Asian carp muscle protein hydrolysates obtained using methodology in Objective 1 as a first feed for larval LMB.

• Establish laboratory procedures for the analysis of microplastics in sediment of natural waters, and obtain preliminary data for Lake Michigan