Coronavirus and AWRI

All of us have been inundated with coronavirus stories the past few months, so this opener will be kept as brief as possible to minimize contributing to your information overload.  Like every segment of our society, AWRI operations have also been impacted by this pandemic.  Our spring educational vessel cruises have been canceled, some of our research projects have been delayed or are in limbo, and teaching online courses on the fly have been an adventure; when these courses also have hands-on labs, the adventure seemingly evolves from merely challenging to truly Sisyphean.  Nonetheless, we soldier on, doing our best to preserve and enhance our region’s water resources, and even on occasion, pushing that boulder over the other side of the mountain. 

Bopi Biddanda attended (virtually) the winter meeting of the National Association of Marine Laboratories on behalf of AWRI on March 16^th – 17^th.

Jasmine Mancuso and Bopi Biddanda showcased AWRI and the Muskegon Lake Observatory at the Spring Thaw event organized by Torresen Marine in Muskegon on March 14^th.

Al Steinman recently was interviewed by Great Lakes Echo on the impact of the coronavirus on AWRI operations.

AWRI staff are bolded, undergraduate students are denoted with a single asterisk*, graduate students are denoted with two asterisks**, and post-doc researchers are donated with three asterisks ***.

Publications

Bopi Biddanda had a book review published in the newsletter Lakes Letter:
Biddanda, B. 2020. A freshwater refresher. Book review of “Freshwater Ecology: Concepts and Environmental Applications in Limnology” by W. Dodds and M. Whiles, Academic Press, 2019. Lakes Letter, winter 2020, p. 11. https://iaglr.org/lakesletter/

Molly Lane had a paper published in the journal Water:
Lane, M. J.**, J.N. McNair, R.R. Rediske, S. Briggs, M. Sivaganesan, and R. Haugland. 2020. Simplified analysis of measurement data from a rapid E. coli qPCR method (EPA Draft Method C) using a standardized excel
workbook. Water, 12(3), 775.

Presentations

(Presenter listed first)

AWRI was represented at the annual meeting of the Michigan Chapter of the American Fisheries Society in Mt. Pleasant on March 12^th – 13^th. Participants were Carl Ruetz, his graduate student Maggie Oudsema, and undergraduate student Christian Yap. Presentations given by AWRI personnel:
Oudsema, M.**, and C.R. Ruetz III. Oral. Spatiotemporal patterns of littoral fish assemblages in two Lake Michigan drowned river mouths.
Castle, D., J. Wesley, A. Martell, D. Mays, C.R. Ruetz III, A. Mock**, N. Auer, C. Goble, D. Hayes, N. Watson, T. Zorn, D. Sampson, B. Fessell, and J. Aho. Oral. Overview of the Michigan Arctic Grayling Initiative (MAGI) current and future projects.
Yap, C.*, C.R. Ruetz III, and J. McNair. Poster. A new computer program to evaluate biases in the two-sample mark-recapture abundance estimator.
Mader, M.**, C.R. Ruetz III, and S.A. Woznicki. Poster. Drowned river mouths of eastern Lake Michigan: geography and stressors.

Rick Rediske give a guest lecture on PFAS contamination in Northern Kent County for NRM 330, Environmental Pollution, using Blackboard Collaborate on March 12^th.

Amanda Syers presented two sessions on the topic of population education at the Michigan Science Teachers Association Conference in Lansing on March 6^th. 

Janet Vail presented on the topic of hands-on, experiential learning for K-12 grades at the Natural Shoreline Landscape Workshop held in Muskegon on March 7^th.

Sean Woznicki received a letter of recognition from the Office of the Provost for his exceptional efforts with student success and retention based on student surveys submitted from Winter 2020 semester.

Carl Ruetz’s lab received a contract from West Michigan Shoreline Regional Development Commission (WMSRDC) in the amount of $5,013 to continue their sampling and surveying of fish at restoration sites on Muskegon Lake.

Al Steinman’s lab received a contract from WMSRDC in the amount of $13,153 to continue monitoring Bear Creek and Bear Lake water quality as part of the Bear Creek Restoration Water Quality Monitoring Project.

AWRI In The News

“New findings in microbial ecology described from Grand Valley State University (Microhabitats are associated with diversity-productivity relationships in freshwater bacterial communities)”
Ecology Daily News, March 5, 2020
Bopi Biddanda, his former graduate student and now technician Anthony Weinke, and former undergraduate student Fallon Januska, are mentioned as co-authors of this article on biodiversity.

LMC Events

No events were held at the Lake Michigan Center this month.