April 29th, 2014 by iisg_superadmin
The North Central Region Water Network is a recently formed partnership between extension agencies and professionals in twelve states. The network was created to help foster collaboration between researchers and extension staff throughout these states addressing water issues common to the region.
The Current, a webinar series designed to connect people with the new network and the water issues that are critical to the region, held the first round of presentations earlier this month. IISG’s water resource economist Margaret Schneeman was among the presenters for the inaugural webinar, Managing Water Supply: Resources for Education, Engagement, and Research, and she highlighted the work done so far to address water supply planning in northeastern Illinois. Gary Zoubek of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension, and David Lusch from Michigan State University presented for the webinar as well.
Through both the webinars and collaboration between extension programs, the North Central Region Water Network hopes to expand water protection efforts, research, and the spread of information throughout the states. Visit the webpage (linked above) to learn more.
March 17th, 2014 by iisg_superadmin
Research into the Lake Michigan food web has increased in the last decade, but there are still a lot of questions—exactly what is eating what, and how is that dynamic affected by environmental changes? To find answers to these and other questions, researchers from federal and state agencies, universities, and non-profit organizations will come together next month in Ann Arbor, MI. The two-day meeting will feature discussions on past and current food web studies and end with a plan for future research.
The meeting kicks off April 1 with presentations on several Sea Grant- and EPA-funded studies. IISG’s Tomas Hook, Sergiusz Czesny, director of the Lake Michigan Biological Station, and Bo Bunnell of the USGS Great Lakes Science Center will discuss the state of Lake Michigan fish populations, including the results of a three-year investigation of the differences in nearshore food webs across the lake. Harvey Bootsma, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and NOAA’s Henry A. Vanderploeg will also be onsite to talk about recent findings on the diets of phytoplankton, algae, and other species at the bottom of the food chain. Additional presentations, orchestrated by IISG’s Paris Collingsworth and featuring IISG-funded scientist Cary Troy, will talk about research on the physical dynamics of the lake and steady flow of nutrients brought in by stormwater runoff—two important factors affecting food web structures. Paris will also introduce plans for upcoming monitoring and field activities in Lake Michigan as part of the Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative.
Conversations on the second day will turn to planning. IISG research staff will team up with representatives from the Wisconsin and Michigan Sea Grant programs to lead discussions on data still needed to understand how invasive species, contaminants, climate change, and other factors are affecting the Lake Michigan food web. Meeting attendees will also have an opportunity to briefly talk about their research and where they hope to go next. The gaps and next steps identified will help Lake Michigan Sea Grant programs identify research projects to fund in the coming years.
This meeting is the third of its kind since 2008. And, like those before it, this year’s meeting is coordinated by IISG and GLRRIN Lake Michigan partners from Wisconsin Sea Grant, Michigan Sea Grant, the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, the US EPA Great Lakes National Program Office, and the USGS Great Lakes Science Center. Previous meetings helped launch the 2010 Lake Michigan Intensive Monitoring Field Year and resulted in roughly $1.7 million in funding for food web projects.
To learn more about the meeting and how to attend, contact Carolyn Foley. And stay tuned for instructions on how to stream this meeting in real time.
March 6th, 2014 by iisg_superadmin
Quagga and Zebra mussels have been a problem for waterways including the Great Lakes for decades, but there may finally be a targeted solution that can significantly reduce their numbers without disrupting other organisms.
“Now the mussels may have met their match: Daniel P. Molloy, an emeritus biologist at the New York State Museum in Albany and a self-described ‘Bronx boy who became fascinated by things living in water.’
Inspired by Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’ in high school, Dr. Molloy, now 66, has long been a pioneer in the development of environmentally safe control agents to replace broad-spectrum chemical pesticides.
As a result, New York State has awarded a license to Marrone Bio Innovations, a company in Davis, Calif., to develop a commercial formulation of the bacterium. The product, Zequanox, has been undergoing tests for several years, with promising results. (Dr. Molloy has no financial ties to the company.)
Zequanox killed more than 90 percent of the mussels in a test using tanks of water from Lake Carlos in Minnesota, said James A. Luoma, a research biologist with the United States Geological Survey in La Crosse, Wis. A control group of freshwater mussels, unionids from the Black River in Wisconsin, were unharmed.”
Read the rest of the article at the link above.
March 3rd, 2014 by iisg_superadmin
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant’s Tomas Höök, associate director for research, was part of a team of researchers involved in a comprehensive study on Lake Erie’s health and measures needed to protect it.
“The report from the multi-institution EcoFore-Lake Erie project states that a 46 percent reduction in the amount, or load, of phosphorus pollution would be needed to shrink Lake Erie’s Central Basin hypoxic zone to a size last seen in the mid-1990s—a time that coincided with the recovery of several recreational and commercial fisheries in the lake’s west and central basins.
Phosphorus is a nutrient used in crop fertilizers. Excess phosphorus washes off croplands during rainstorms and flows downstream in rivers that feed the Great Lakes. Once in the lakes, phosphorus can trigger algae blooms. When the algae die and sink to the lake bottom, oxygen-consuming bacteria feed on them and create hypoxic zones in the process. Many fish shun these oxygen-starved waters, which significantly reduce the amount of suitable habitat available to the fish.
The study, accepted for publication in a forthcoming edition of the Journal of Great Lakes Research, calls for Central Basin phosphorus reductions considerably higher than other recent recommendations, including a proposal issued last year by the Ohio Lake Erie Phosphorus Task Force aimed at avoiding Western Basin toxic algae blooms. The new report is a synthesis of the major findings from the EcoFore-Lake Erie project, created in 2005 and supported by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research.”
Read the rest of the article at the link above.
February 28th, 2014 by iisg_superadmin
Will Tyburczy’s Knauss fellowship may be over, but his time at NOAA headquarters is not. The IISG-funded fellow will stay with the Office of Program Planning and Integration for another six months to continue some of the work he began as a Knauss Fellow. Please visit the IISG Fellowship page for more information about the Sea Grant Knauss fellowship as well as other fellowship opportunities.
A Ph.D. candidate at University of Chicago, Will spent the bulk of the last year helping NOAA’s Regional Collaboration Network coordinate the work of NOAA’s five main offices—Weather Service, Fisheries Service, Satellite and Information Service, Ocean Service, and Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. The efforts of these offices often overlap on major issues like climate change, habitat conservation, and emergency response. It was Will’s job, along with the other network members, to find opportunities for collaboration and help NOAA make progress on these issues. He also served as a liaison between NOAA regional staff and organization leaders, ensuring that each group had the information and resources they need to effectively meet program goals.
“It was challenging at times,” said Will. “Sometimes it feels like people are talking past each other and you just aren’t making progress. But we have great people who share a lot of the same goals. It is very satisfying to help them work together to meet those goals.”
But one of the highlights of the fellowship involved a very different kind of coordination. Will organized the fall edition of Earth Science Monitor, a bi-annual publication that reports on NOAA environmental data and programs. He worked closely with representatives from the network’s eight regions to develop articles showing what NOAA is doing to address environmental issues in each region. He also worked with NOAA head Jane Lubchenco on the lead article.
Even after he leaves NOAA, Will hopes to continue working at the nexus of science and policy, translating scientific findings into actionable policy advice. And he has advice for others who think they might be interested in doing similar work: “Apply for the Knauss fellowship. It is a great program.”
February 25th, 2014 by iisg_superadmin
Much like a gardener hopes that their scattered seeds will eventually bloom into a lush garden, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant awards seed grants to projects that address some of the biggest concerns in the Great Lakes in the hopes that the initiatives will grow into something larger. These Discovery Grant projects—totaling over 40 since 2009—cover a broad range of topics, and their results help natural resource managers and policy makers preserve Lake Michigan and strengthen nearby communities.
So, what are these projects exactly? We’re glad you asked. Discovery Grant Projects II shines a light on unexpected and emerging contaminants in stream water. Other featured projects examine the market for domestic seafood and give Hoosiers real-time access to fish consumption advisories. And another still paints a clearer picture of how Asian carp are changing the food web in the Illinois River.
Download the first edition, Discovery Grant Projects, to learn about past research on water quality, aquaculture, biodiversity, and more. And visit our Research page to read more about past projects and get a peek at ongoing research.
January 22nd, 2014 by IISG
The cure for some of the world’s deadliest diseases may be living at the bottom of the Great Lakes. This is the theory Brian Murphy, a medicinal chemist at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), set out to test in 2012 when he scoured Lake Huron in search of a largely unexplored type of bacteria that may hold the key to new treatments.
The IISG-funded study unearthed more than 600 strains of freshwater actinomycete bacteria, making it one of the largest “libraries” of its kind in the world. Murphy—with help from UIC researchers Scott Franzblau, Joanna Burdette, and Lijun Rong—is still testing whether these strains can be used to create new treatments for tuberculosis and other life-threatening diseases. But their initial results suggest that at least a handful of freshwater bacteria could lead to new cures.
A microbe’s medicinal power lies in the small compounds they make to defend themselves, which can destroy cell walls, prevent DNA from replicating like it should, and more. Current treatments for many diseases are built around the chemical defenses used by land-based cousins of the bacteria Murphy has collected. But some treatments, like the ones for tuberculosis, require patients to be on a complex cocktail of antibiotics for months at a time. Worse still, a growing number of diseases are now resistant to standard drugs. The hope is that some of the freshwater bacteria in Murphy’s library might create molecules that dangerous pathogens have yet to evolve defenses against.
“Researchers have been operating on the assumption that bacteria in the lake are nearly identical to what are found on the land,” said Murphy. “But we think these freshwater strains are likely to produce new molecules that target diseases in different ways.”
Murphy and his team will spend the next few months scrutinizing chemical compounds from 10 actinomycete strains already showing disease-fighting potential and comparing them against known antibiotics, anti-virals, and anti-cancer agents. At the same time, they will keep working through their bacterial library hoping to find even more molecules with drug-like potency.
Just as important as finding new molecules is learning more about the relationship between a microbe’s chemical properties and where it lives. This is where Murphy’s library of strains really comes in. Its size and diversity will help reveal both whether aquatic actinomycete bacteria are significantly different than their land-based counterparts and if strains found in different lakes use unique chemical defenses.
“One of the biggest barriers in the discovery of new drugs is knowing where to look,” said Murphy. “Knowing where bacteria populations are similar and where they are different helps us figure out exactly where to sample when looking for new drugs.”
Because of his collection, Murphy has already discovered that the makeup of actinomycete communities in Lake Huron varies both by location and depth, a diversity that makes the lake a potentially important site in the hunt for new cures.
December 13th, 2013 by Irene Miles
Two student applicants sponsored by Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant were selected as Knauss fellowship winners this year, and last month they traveled to the nation’s capital to find their respective positions working on water resource and environmental issues.
Katherine Touzinsky and Sara Paver both wrote in to update us on the positions they selected and the specific areas where they will be focusing their energies.
“Placement week – what to say?” Katherine writes. “Over the course of three days, I had 17 interviews for different positions, and each and every one seemed like something I had dreamed up. It was one of the most stressful and exciting experiences I’ve ever had.
I was placed as a navigation R&D advisor for the US Army Corps of Engineers. The US Army Corps of Engineers provides vital public engineering services in peace and war to strengthen our nation’s security, energize the economy, and reduce risks from disasters. I get to take a leadership role in research and development by helping to manage a national R&D agenda, make decisions about technical approaches, and integrate technical teams from federal, academic, and industry sectors. And I’ll get to actively participate in actual research projects too. For at least one week each month, I will be traveling to national DoD labs to meet scientists, get to know their research, and work to make connections between them and other governmental and non-governmental sectors.
I’m in the second year of my master’s program in ecological sciences and engineering (ESE). My thesis work is on the plasticity of Asian carp between the Illinois and Wabash Rivers, and I’ve been lucky enough to work closely with bowfisherman through most of my Asian sampling and extension activities. Right now I’m trying to choose whether or not I will continue on for my PhD and if so, on what topic. I’ve gained some crucial insight on my interests through working with ESE – what I love about ecology is studying interactions and, more broadly, systems. I’m so excited about the Knauss Fellowship year because it is going to let me get a bird’s eye view of the intersections between high-level government, scientists and researchers, the ecology of specific areas, and end users (fisherman, recreationalists, commercial operators, etc.).”
Sara also found placement week to be quite the experience. “Knauss placement week was a fun, speed-dating-esque marathon. It provided an amazing opportunity to get a glimpse of the breadth of work being done within NOAA and other host agencies. I really enjoyed meeting and talking with representatives from various host offices as well as incoming, current, and former fellows.
I selected a position at the National Science Foundation’s Division of Ocean Sciences. Part of my responsibilities will be to facilitate peer review and award decisions for proposals submitted to the Ocean Section, including the Coastal Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability (Coastal SEES) program. I am really excited to be exposed to cutting-edge research and to see the grant review process first hand. I think that reading and participating in the review of the Coastal SEES proposals will be particularly enlightening due to their interdisciplinary nature.
I am graduating in December with a Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, having studied aquatic microbial ecology in Dr. Angela Kent’s lab. I am looking forward to broadening my understanding of how policy and the needs of society influence science and how science, in turn, informs policy. I plan to return to microbial ecology research armed with this knowledge following my year as a fellow.”
To learn more about the fellowship program, visit the National Sea Grant College Program Dean John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship website. And to find out about all of the fellowships available to undergraduate, graduate, and post-grad students, visit our fellowship page.
November 4th, 2013 by Irene Miles
Earlier this year, Anjanette Riley and Laura Kammin from IISG participated in one of several research excursions on the Great Lakes, collecting samples to analyze the microplastic content of the water. Related research was recently published, and the findings are surprising.
“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).”
Read the complete post at the link above.
