BEST WISHES TO DEAR FRIENDS!

Shirley McIntire and Michele Smith have been science instructors on the W.G. Jackson for 15 years. In Fall 2021, they taught on their last trips on board and set sail into retirement. We are so grateful for their dedication to teaching young people about Michigan’s water resources for so many years at AWRI. Bon voyage, Michele and Shirley!

Faculty and Staff Activities

Bopi Biddanda attended the virtual CIGLR-IJC-sponsored Hypoxia Workshop on October 26^th.

Christina Catanese joined the National Association of Marine Laboratories Education Committee and the Great Lakes Association of Science Ships Steering Committee.

Jim McNair continues to participate in weekly Zoom meetings with Molly Lane, Rick Rediske, and scientists from US EPA, Michigan EGLE, Michigan State University, and several other Michigan universities regarding a new project dealing with statistical analysis and interpretation of qPCR beach-monitoring data.

Jim McNair recently attended two in-person meetings of the GVSU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Faculty Development Committee.

Jim McNair represented AWRI at the GVSU Undergraduate Research Fair held on October 5^th at the Allendale campus. Sarah Hamsher split her time between representing the Biology department and AWRI.

Charlyn Partridge met with a biologist from Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on October 21^st to discuss continuing their eDNA work for the next year.

Carl Ruetz participated in a virtual meeting on October 4^th about the improvements of road-stream crossings at Little Cedar Creek. He provided the project partners preliminary fish data to inform restoration decisions.

Carl Ruetz’s BIO362 class participated in a field trip on the research vessel D.J. Angus as part of their lab on October 14^th. The class deployed a trawl in Spring Lake to sample fish.

Al Steinman participated in a Zoom meeting with members from DNR, EGLE, Governor Whitmer’s office, and WMSRDC regarding having West Michigan drowned river mouths be the basis for an application to become part of the National Estuary Research Reserve system.

Al Steinman attended a West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum event in Grand Haven on October 20^th to discuss a sustainability plan for the City of Grand Haven.

Al Steinman met with Muskegon Community College’s Ken James, Chief Diversity Officer, and Matt Cooper, Professor of Environmental Sciences, at AWRI on October 25^th to discuss collaborations with AWRI.

Janet Vail helped facilitate a workshop for Michigan Resources on Climate and Land Change Education (MiRCLE) on the topic of “Vulnerability and Justice” on October 14^th. 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 and Amanda Syers facilitated a Groundswell and BWET workshop titled “Developing data-driven watershed stewardship projects” via Zoom on October 28^th.

Sean Woznicki attended the GVSU Biology Graduate Program Committee meeting on October 10^th. Sean is now serving as the AWRI representative for the Biology Graduate Program Committee.

 

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

AWRI helped organize a meeting of the Wastewater and Beach Testing Network that was held October 13^th – 15^th at the Muskegon Innovation Hub. Dr. Rick Rediske was the meeting moderator. AWRI staff in attendance were: Maggie Brenneman (undergrad), John Hart (grad), Charlyn Partridge (faculty), Aurelia Pena (undergrad), Alexis Porter (staff), and Brian Scull (staff) attended the meeting. AWRI staff made the following presentations:

Porter. A., R. Rediske, and A. Molla. Oral. SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance: An epidemiologic analysis of COVID-19 population surveillance in west Michigan.
Hart, J.** and R. Rediske. Poster. Preliminary MST results for Grand River Sub Watersheds.
Pena, A.*, A. Porter, and R. Rediske. Poster. Exploring the development of accessible data visualizations to improve health communication of SARS-CoV-2 wastewater variant data.
Brenneman, M.* and R. Rediske. Poster. A review of the ArcGIS Survey123 app’s use in the 2021 beach monitoring season.
 

AWRI was represented at the Michigan Space Grant Consortium’s fall conference held at Calvin University on October 16^th. Bopi Biddanda, Sean Woznicki, Nate Dugener (grad), Maggie Petersen (grad), Ellen Foley (grad), Jonathan Walt (grad), and Ian Stone (staff) were in attendance; Al Steinman attended virtually. Bopi chaired a session titled “Out of Solar System Phenomena”.

Dugener, N.**, I. Stone*, A. Weinke and B. Biddanda. Poster. Out of oxygen: Exploring bottom water hypoxia dynamics in a Great Lakes estuary.
Foley, E.** and A.D. Steinman. Oral. Lake Responses to Elevated Levels of Chloride and Phosphorus.
Petersen, M.** and C. Partridge. Poster. Microplastics and molecular endpoints in Fathead Minnows.
Stone, I.*, A. Weinke and B. Biddanda. Poster. Dancing the night (and day) away: Extant mat world microbes synchronize migration to a diel tempo.
Walt J.** and S.A. Woznicki. 2021. Poster. Mapping the Spread of Invasive Plants in Michigan Wetlands.
 

Charlyn Partridge gave a presentation at the Interagency Forest Invasives Committee Meeting to discuss some of Meg Sander’s work on using airborne eDNA methods for detecting hemlock woolly adelgid on October 19^th.

Alexis Porter presented a paper titled “SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance: An infectious epidemiological analysis of COVID-19” at the American Public Health Conference in Denver, Colorado on October 27^th. Co-authors are R. Rediske and A. Molla (GVSU Public Health).

Rick Rediske chaired the Wolverine Community Advisory meeting on October 21^st and gave a presentation on the capping of the House Street disposal area.

Carl Ruetz presented to Muskegon Community College’s Environmental Science class during their visit to AWRI on October 26^th.

Al Steinman gave a presentation about Muskegon Lake restoration to adult learners at Temple B’Nai Israel on October 10^th.

Sean Woznicki was a guest lecturer for MSU Biosystems Engineering Graduate Ecohydrology course: “Modeling and monitoring climate and land use change impacts on aquatic ecosystems” on September 24^th.

Sean Woznicki and Amanda Buday (GVSU Sociology, presentation lead) presented at a Muskegon Lake Watershed Partnership meeting on the My Muskegon Lake survey results on October 5^th.

PUBLICATIONS

Bopi was lead author of a recent Eos, Postcards from the field:
Biddanda, B. and S. Kendall. 8/17/2021. Hidden life of giant microbialites in Laguna Bacalar, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Postcards from the Field, Eos, American Geophysical Union, 102 (10): 48. https://eos.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/OCT21.pdf

Janelle Cook, Bopi Biddanda’s summer intern, was lead author of an article published in Interchange:
Cook, J.*, C. Catanese, and B. Biddanda. 2021. A just and delightful tantrum: Sophia’s call for climate action. (The article reflected on the children’s book “The Tantrum That Saved the World,” by Megan Herbert and Michael Mann.) Connections for the STEM Classroom, September 2021. https://www.gvsu.edu/rmsc/interchange/2021-september-connection-1-a-just-and-delightful-1669.htm

Tyler Harman, recent graduate student advised by Kevin Strychar, has an article accepted to Diseases of Aquatic Organisms:
Harman, T.E.**, D. Barshis, B. Hauff Salas, S.E. Hamsher, and K.B. Strychar. Symbiotic state influences melanin-synthesis immune response in the facultative coral, Astrangia poculata. Diseases of Aquatic Organisms (MS ID# DAO-2021-04-007).

Lidiia Iavorivska, former postdoctoral researcher in the Steinman lab, has an article accepted to Journal of Great Lakes Research. Al is a co-author.
Iavorivska, L.***, T.L. Veith, R. Cibin, H.E. Preisendanz, and A.D. Steinman. In Press. Mitigating lake eutrophication through stakeholder-driven hydrologic modeling of agricultural conservation practices: A case study of Lake Macatawa, Michigan. Journal of Great Lakes Research.

Grants, Contracts, Awards, and Recognition

GRANTS & CONTRACTS

Sean Woznicki was awarded a NASA Land Cover/Land Use Change Program grant. The title is: “Water Scarcity in the Serbian Danube: Agricultural Land Use Change and Irrigation”. He is the lead PI, with co-investigators from Michigan State University and Michigan Technological University, and collaborators from the USDA Agricultural Research Service and the BioSense Institute at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia. The total grant amount is $449,817.

Al Steinman received a grant from the Community Foundation for Muskegon County for $5,000 to provide additional funding to the genetics lab at AWRI.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

No awards or recognitions this month.

AWRI News and Events

AWRI IN THE NEWS

“Postcards from the field”
Eos, October 2021
Bopi Biddanda and Scott Kendall submitted a postcard taken in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

“Poster sessions cover the A – Z of public health”
The Nation’s Health, October 24, 2021
Alexis Porter was interviewed regarding the SARS-CoV-2 wastewater testing being done at the GVSU-AWRI Analytical Lab.

“Figuring out the elusive age of groundwater venting in Lake Huron’s sinkholes”
Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research 2021 Ripple Effect
Bopi Biddanda was interviewed regarding his research on sinkholes in Lake Huron.

“Groundwater in crisis? Addressing groundwater challenges in Michigan as a template for the Great Lakes”
Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research 2021 Ripple Effect
Al Steinman lead a summit to address groundwater issues.

“EXPERT: The Great Lakes warming above average is a concern”
Al Steinman, director of the Annis Water Resources Institute, was interviewed by WLNS Channel 6 in Lansing for a story about warmer water temperatures in the Great Lakes.

LMC EVENTS

On October 8, Dr. Peter Dijkstra from Central Michigan University presented “Managing the cost of reproduction in an East African cichlid fish”.

On October 15, the Wastewater and Beach Testing Network visited AWRI and received a tour.

On October 26, Muskegon Community College’s Environmental Science class taught by Matt Cooper visited AWRI and had the opportunity to tour facilities and hear from several PIs and graduate students about their research and careers in aquatic science.