HOTTER AND DRIER IN SERBIA – HOW DO FARMERS RESPOND TO WATER SCARCITY?

Dr. Sean Woznicki was recently awarded a grant through the NASA Land-Cover and Land-Use Change program in the amount of $448,336 to determine how climate change, land use change, and agricultural policies affect water scarcity in the Serbian Danube. This is a collaboration between Sean and researchers at Michigan State University, Michigan Technological University, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the BioSense Institute in Novi Sad, Serbia.

In some ways, Serbian agriculture is much like Michigan – corn and soybeans are two of the most widely grown crops in the country. However, the agricultural landscape in Serbia is dominated by a shifting mosaic of 630,000 small farms, most fewer than 30 acres in size; the average farm in Michigan is over 200 acres. Serbia is also negotiating accession into the European Union (EU). Their integration into the EU single market is increasing agricultural exports and altering domestic agricultural policy. As Serbia’s growing season rainfall declines, farmers have difficult decisions to make: invest in irrigation infrastructure, transition to less water-intensive crops, or stay the course. Exploiting a declining water source will exacerbate water scarcity, and could result in a race to the bottom for irrigation access.

The goal of this research is to quantify how climate, water scarcity, and changing markets drive farmers’ land use decisions; lessons learned will be applicable globally. This project is truly interdisciplinary: it will combine (1) remotely-sensed data from US and European satellites to track agricultural change and crop water use, (2) computational modeling of the Danube River watershed, and (3) socioeconomic and market analysis. Understanding how farmers, and ultimately the agricultural landscape, are responding to a warmer and drier world is critical for protection of water resources globally.

Faculty, Staff, and Student Activities

Bopi Biddanda continues to direct NASA-Michigan Space Grant Consortium programs at GVSU; he recently reviewed 30 Non-GVSU proposals for the 2022-2023 cycle as part of the MSGC Board service.

Christina Catanese attended the monthly GVSU PK-12 Engagement Lunch & Learn webinar series organized by the Regional Math and Science Center on December 2^nd.

Christina Catanese attended two webinars in the MSU Tollgate Farm Perspectives Series on Culturally Responsive Place-Based Education, titled “Incorporating native tribal and indigenous perspectives in maple sugaring experiences” and “Incorporating black perspectives in place-based teaching” on November 5^th and December 2^nd, respectively.

Christina Catanese and Amanda Syers attended “WaterViz: Use data-derived art & music to teach water cycle science” virtual training on December 3^rd. This was organized by the U.S. Forest Service and Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire.

Christina Catanese attended a webinar hosted by the U.S. Department of Education and NOAA titled “Environmental literacy STEM - supporting students as both learners and stewards” on December 9^th.

Christina Catanese attended the inaugural meeting of a working group of Organization of Biological Field Stations (OBFS) focused on Arts at Field Stations and Marine Labs on December 10^th.

Christina Catanese attended the second monthly meeting of a new working group of OBFS focused on Arts at Field Stations and Marine Labs on January 11^th.

Christina Catanese attended the NAML Education Committee meeting on January 21^st.

Christina Catanese attended the Great Lakes Association of Science Ships (GLASS) steering committee meeting on January 26^th.

Ellen Foley, current graduate student working with Al Steinman, has submitted abstracts to both the Emerging Contaminant Conference at the University of Illinois and to JASM on her thesis research. Al is a co-author.

Sarah Hamsher is continuing to meet with the local organizing committee of the Joint Aquatic Science Meeting as a representative of the Phycological Society of America.

Sarah Hamsher is teaching two sections of BIO 376, Genetics Laboratory, winter semester.

Mike Hassett has submitted an abstract to JASM on the Lower Muskegon River Reconnection project. Al and Maggie are co-authors.

Jim McNair participated in a meeting of the CLAS Faculty Development Committee on January 27.

Jim McNair submitted an abstract for an oral presentation at the 2022 Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Grand Rapids. Title: Estimating habitat-specific metabolic rates in streams with marked longitudinal habitat variation.

Jim McNair continues to participate in weekly Zoom meetings to discuss the qPCR papers dealing with beach monitoring criterion and decisions-theoretic framework, on which he is taking the lead. Other meeting participants include Rick Rediske, Rich Haugland (US EPA ORD), Shannon Briggs (MI EGLE), and a host of others from various universities across Michigan.

Charlyn Partridge continues to attend weekly Zoom meetings to discuss the COVID wastewater project and the summer beach sampling project.

Charlyn Partridge was elected to the Michigan Lakes and Streams Association Board of Directors in December 2021. Their first board meeting was held on January 26^th. Her election is featured in the Winter 2022 issue of The Michigan Riparian. 

Charlyn Partridge is teaching BIO 585, Molecular Ecology, winter semester.

Maggie Petersen, current graduate student working with Charlyn Partridge, submitted abstracts for her work assessing the effects of microplastic ingestion on the health of fathead minnows to the Midwest Fish and Wildlife Conference, and to the Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting.

Rick Rediske led the discussion of the Tannery Groundwater Treatment System at the virtual meeting of the Wolverine Community Advisory Group on January 21^st.

Carl Ruetz attended the Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences majors meeting via Zoom on January 24^th. The meeting was to welcome students and gain feedback as we begin to gather momentum for the new major.

Carl Ruetz was invited to be on PhD student’s (Sara Diller) committee at Western Michigan University in the Department of Biological Sciences.

Meg Sanders, Charlyn Partridge’s graduate student, completed her thesis defense on Monday, Nov. 22, 2021. Her thesis was approved by The Graduate School.

Al Steinman continued his regular meetings for his service on the coordination of the JASM 22 and Great Lakes AOC conferences to be held in May 2022.

Al Steinman is collaborating with Dr. Sara Hughes (UM) on groundwater policy in Michigan.

Al Steinman is serving on the search committee for a new Director of Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP).

Al Steinman served on NOAA’s National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) Science Collaborative Panel from February 8-10^th. The panel met virtually to review the latest round of pre-proposals.

Al Steinman reviewed Graduate Fellowship proposals for CIGLR.

Al Steinman has been asked to be a panelist in a special session at JASM 22 titled: Advancing Ecosystem Service Valuation Research and Assessment in the Great Lakes.

Ian Stone, technician in the Biddanda Lab, and Nate Dugener, graduate student working with Bopi, have each submitted abstracts for the Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting (JASM) 2022 to be held in May in Grand Rapids, MI:
Ian Stone, Anthony Weinke and Bopi Biddanda. Biogeochemical duet: Modern day mat world microbes dance to the diel beat of light and biochemicals.
Nate Dugener, Ian Stone, Anthony Weinke and Bopi Biddanda. Breathless: Seasonal loading and stratification drive hypoxia dynamics in a Great Lakes estuary.

Amanda Syers attended a Project WET State Coordinators meeting (virtual) on December 8^th.

Amanda Syers and Janet Vail attended a Project WET State Coordinators Webinar titled: Climate Workshop: Integrating Project WET, WILD, and PLT on January 13^th.

Janet Vail attended a Population Education training workshop on December 9^th.

Janet Vail facilitated a Groundswell Professional Development meeting on December 14^th.

Janet Vail attended the virtual Muskegon Lake Watershed Partnership meeting on January 4^th.

Janet Vail was a panelist on the Michigan Space Grant funded MiRCLE teacher seminars on January 6^th and 13^th.

Janet Vail has been asked to join the WMEAC Muskegon Climate Action Committee.

Janet Vail attended the West Michigan Clean Air Coalition meeting on January 28^th.

Janet Vail and Amanda Syers are teaching Environmental and Sustainability Studies (ENS) 183, Sustainability as a Lifestyle, winter semester.

Nick Vander Stelt (graduate student) and Brendan May (undergraduate student) submitted abstracts to the Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting and to the Annual Meeting of the Michigan Chapter of the American Fisheries Society.

Jon Walt, graduate student working with Sean Woznicki, submitted an abstract to International Association of Landscape Ecology-North American Annual Meeting on remote sensing of invasive wetland plants.

Jon Walt submitted an abstract to Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting on remote sensing of invasive wetland plants.

Sean Woznicki is a co-author on an abstract submitted to the Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting by Amanda Buday (GVSU Sociology) on the Muskegon Lake recreation/AOC perception survey work.

Sean Woznicki served as a judge at Hamilton Middle School for 8^th grade students with a project theme: “How can we reduce the environmental impact of runoff?” on December 6^th.

Sean Woznicki attended the 2022 NASA Land Cover and Land Use Change PI meeting on January 5^th. He noted that his funded research is now on the NASA website: https://lcluc.umd.edu/projects/water-scarcity-serbian-danube-agricultural-land-use-change-and-irrigation

Sean Woznicki is teaching GPY 100, Physical and Environmental Geography, winter semester.

Presentations and Publications

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 ***.

PRESENTATIONS

Christina Catanese gave a guest lecture about her career path and current work at AWRI in Janet Vail’s ENS 201 class on December 1^st.

Al Steinman presented to the Bear Lake - Lake Board at North Muskegon City Hall on December 9^th.

Al Steinman presented to a group of senior citizens at Forest Hills Retirement Center (Grand Rapids) on the topic of groundwater on December 14^th.

Al Steinman was the presenter on the topic of Bear Lake at AWRI’s monthly (academic year) seminar held virtually on January 14^th.

Al Steinman gave a presentation on Updates at AWRI to the Muskegon Rotary on January 27^th.

Kevin Strychar was a guest lecturer for Bruce Ostrow’s Invertebrate Zoology class, BIO 232, on January 27^th. The topic of his lecture was “Climate change and coral reefs”.

Janet Vail presented a student-created lesson at a Michigan Resources on Climate and Land Change Education (MiRCLE): Vulnerability and Justice workshop on December 2^nd.  This is a project of the Climate Change Education Solutions Network and it is funded by the Michigan Space Grant Consortium. This is a continuation of a workshop series that started in 2019.

Janet Vail presented information on her non-point source pollution lessons created for Groundswell at their annual dinner on December 7^th. Liesl Eichler Clark, Director of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE), was the featured speaker. She mentioned the work of AWRI and of Al Steinman.

Sean Woznicki gave an invited presentation to the Clean Water Science Network, a non-profit, titled “From climate change to watershed change: Impacts on aquatic communities, wetlands, and water scarcity” on December 14^th.

PUBLICATIONS

Bopi Biddanda was lead author of a non-peer-reviewed article published in Eos:
Biddanda, B., T. Roetman, A. Yagiela, and D. Burlingame. 2021. Reeling in a Great Lakes Observing science buoy. Postcards from the Field, Eos, American Geophysical Union, December 2021. https://americangeophysicalunion.tumblr.com/post/669477695524044800/reeling-in-a-great-lakes-observing-science-buoy

Bopi Biddanda was lead author of an article published in Environmental Data Initiative:
Biddanda, B., S. Kendall, A. Weinke, I. Stone, N. Dugener**, S. Ruberg, J. Leidig, E. Smith, M. Berg, and G. Wolffe. 2021. Muskegon Lake Observatory buoy data: Muskegon Lake, Michigan: 2011-2019 ver 1. Environmental Data Initiative (Accessed 2022-01-25). https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/d1ef6101a1870a0b0bd54d3914dc13dc

Bopi Biddanda was a co-author of an article published in mSystems:
Grim, S.L., A.A. Voorhies, B.A. Biddanda, S. Jain, S.C. Nold., R. Green, and G.J. Dick. 2021. Omics-inferred partition and expression of biogeochemical functions in a low-O₂ cyanobacterial mat community. mSystems 6 (6): e01042-21 https://journals.asm.org/doi/epdf/10.1128/mSystems.01042-21

Al Steinman is a co-author of an article published in the journal Water:
Su, X., A.D. Steinman, Y. Zhang, H. Ling, X. Guo, and D. Wu. 2022. Explaining the different seasonal variations and spatial distributions of nutrient levels in a Chinese eutrophic shallow lake and its connected rivers: Implications for lake management. Water, 14, 217. https://doi.org/10.3390/w14020217

Al Steinman is a co-author of an article published in Science of the Total Environment.
Tang, X., A.D. Steinman, Q. Xue, Y. Xu, and L. Xie. In Press. Simultaneous electrochemical removal of Microcystis aeruginosa and sulfamethoxazole and its ecologic impacts on Vallisneria spiralis. Science of the Total Environment.

Al and Emily Kindervater are authors on a non-peer reviewed article published in The Michigan Riparian:
Steinman, A.D. and E. Kindervater. 2022. Do muck-digesting pellets work? The Michigan Riparian 58: 24-27.

Kevin Strychar was lead author of an article published in the journal Water:
Strychar K.B., B. Hauff-Salas, J.A. Haslun, J. DeBoer, K. Cryer, S. Keith, and S. Wooten. 2021. Stress resistance and adaptation of the aquatic invasive species Tubastrea coccinea (Lesson, 1829) to climate change and ocean acidification. Water 2021(13): 12 p. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13243645

Kevin Strychar was a co-author of three articles recently published:
Antonelli, P., S. Rutz, and K.B. Strychar. 2021. Heat stress on Scleractinian Corals: Its symbionts in evolution. Nonlinear Analysis: Real World Applications. 28(1):189-196. ISSN: 1359-8678
Harman, T.E.**, B. Hauff-Salas, J. Haslun, J. Cervino, and K.B. Strychar. 2022. Decreased photosynthetic efficiency in response to site-translocation and elevated temperature is mitigated with LPS exposure in Porites astreoides symbionts. Water (Special Issue "Climate Change Studies of Coral Reefs").
Squiers, A., and K.B. Strychar. 2021. The role of sea-whip coral (Leptogorgia sp.) as habitat of temperate near-shore fish of Gulf of Mexico Jetties. International Journal of Biology. 13(2):17-36. doi:10.5539/ijb.v13n2p17

Grants, Contracts, Awards, and Recognition

GRANTS & CONTRACTS

Jim McNair is a co-PI on a grant with Ryan Thum (Montana State University) and Ray Newman (University of Minnesota) that has been funded. Title: Building a centralized database of watermilfoil strain geographic distribution and herbicide response for use in management decision-making. Funded by GLRI and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. GVSU subaward: $27,708 (2 years).

Nick Vander Stelt received the George L. Disborough Trout Unlimited Research Grant for $2,100 to support his thesis research. This grant is administered through the Kalamazoo Community Foundation.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

No awards or recognitions this month.

AWRI News and Events

AWRI in the News:

“New Michigan dashboard shows COVID-19 detected in wastewater”
WOOD TV 8, December 8, 2021
Alexis Porter, AWRI research assistant, was interviewed regarding the SARS-CoV-2 wastewater testing being done at the GVSU-AWRI Analytical Lab.

“Grand Valley recognized by local environmental group for sustainability efforts”
GVNext, December 16, 2021
West Michigan Environmental Action Council (WMEAC) recognized GVSU for its sustainability efforts by naming them “Business of the Year”. AWRI was mentioned as one of several GVSU departments with which WMEAC partners.

Rick Rediske was interviewed about PFAS in west Michigan for WKBZ on December 21^st.

“In a record high year, harmful algae endured into the fall for Muskegon County’s largest lakes”
WMEAC Newsletter, December 23, 2021
Rick Rediske was interviewed regarding the reason the algal blooms persisted later than normal in the fall this year.

LMC EVENTS

December 3 – First year AWRI Graduate Students presented their research projects.

December 9 – GVSU Division of Inclusion and Equity held a Wade H. McCree Scholarship Program event.

December 10 – The Michigan State University Extension held a ServSafe Manager Certification Training.

December 13 – Pure Michigan – Muskegon meet with AWRI staff.

January 18 & 19 – Revel B2B Marketing held meetings.