#231 Newsletter - February 2023
Arctic Grayling
ARTIC GRAYLING
The Arctic Grayling was extirpated from Michigan by the early 1900s. The Michigan Arctic Grayling Initiative (www.migrayling.org) aims to bring back this native fish to Michigan streams in their historic range. Graduate student Nick Vander Stelt, in collaboration with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, conducted habitat and fish surveys in tributaries of the Boardman-Ottaway River to help prioritize sites for reintroduction. Nick’s thesis research will help managers make informed decisions about which tributaries in the Boardman-Ottaway River should be prioritized for reintroduction. The current timeline for the initiative is to begin stocking Arctic Grayling in Michigan streams in 3-5 years. Nick will graduate at the end of Winter semester and is the second graduate student to work in Dr. Carl Ruetz’s lab on research to support efforts to reintroduce Arctic Grayling in Michigan.
FACULTY, STAFF, AND STUDENT ACTIVITIES
Bopi Biddanda’s findings on the science of sinkholes that was published in the Journal of Great Lakes Research was featured on GVSU’s landing page https://www.gvsu.edu on February 10, 2023.
Bopi Biddanda attended the NASA-MSGC Panel at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on February 16th – 17th. Bopi is GVSU’s affiliate representative to MSGC and serves on the MSGC Executive Board.
Christina Catanese attended the Groundswell Advisory Council meeting on February 9th.
Christina Catanese attended the Arts at Field Stations and Marine Labs (FSMLs) working group meeting on February 14th.
Christina Catanese attended the Groundswell Professional Development Committee meeting on February 21st.
Christina Catanese announced that the annual reporting for Michigan Project WET, which is housed at AWRI, was completed. In 2022, Michigan Project WET trained 69 educators and 2 facilitators, reaching an estimated 8,370 students to advance water education with the goal of building an understanding of global challenges and inspiring local solutions.
Sarah Hamsher will be teaching an algae field course as part of an NSF sponsored project in Colorado from July 9th – 23rd.
Sarah Hamsher is on a postdoc search committee as part of the NSF Rhopalodiales project.
Sarah Hamsher reviewed articles for the Luigi Provasoli Award as part of her service to the Phycological Society of America’s Editorial Board. The Luigi Provasoli Award is presented annually to the author(s) of the three, or fewer, outstanding papers published in the Journal of Phycology during the previous calendar year.
Mark Luttenton is working with the Upper Midwest office of the USGS to conduct nutrient analysis on water samples collected from Torch Lake.
Mark Luttenton met with Ginger Rohwer from the MiSTEM program regarding possible education opportunities that might fit the AWRI educational mission.
Mark Luttenton met with staff from the USGS Lansing and Grayling offices regarding potential studies of groundwater in the Higgins Lake watershed.
Mark Luttenton and Eric Snyder (GVSU Biology Department) talked to the Executive Director of Indian Trails Camp about conducting a study of a small lake on the property. This would be a collaboration with the Occupational Therapy MS program.
Mark Luttenton provided tours of the AWRI facilities for the candidates being interviewed for the faculty position in Biology.
Jim McNair is hosting weekly Zoom meetings for the “Inland Lakes Group” of the Michigan Network for Environmental Health and Technology. The meetings are focused on expansion of an existing data set of bivariate qPCR and Colilert-18 E. coli concentrations to include beach monitoring data for 2021 and 2022. The expanded data set will be used to determine why Michigan’s proposed qPCR-based decision threshold for beach notifications (advisories or closings) performs poorly for certain beaches and sampling dates.
Charlyn Partridge met with the Kalamazoo River Sturgeon working group to discuss the summer plans for that project.
Charlyn Partridge had a meeting with Alex Wieten and Jason Lorenz from the Gun Lake Tribe on to discuss their continued work on wild rice and sturgeon populations for the summer.
Charlyn Partridge has registered for the 1st annual International eDNA meeting through the eDNA Society in Otsu, Japan in May.
Charlyn Partridge continues to attend weekly meetings to discuss the COVID wastewater project and the summer beach sampling project.
Charlyn Partridge is a member of the University Research and Development Committee.
Charlyn Partridge attended a Michigan Lakes and Streams Board of Directors Meeting. The group is working to update their strategic plan.
Charlyn Partridge was chair of the CLAS Cluster hire for AWRI.
Rick Rediske will be offering the Plankton Algae class for EGLE on July 18th – 20th.
Carl Ruetz met with Shaun Nethercott to discuss background on lake sturgeon for an episode of the Great Lakes Odyssey Radio Hour.
Carl Ruetz had an abstract accepted to the Society for Freshwater Science conference, being held June 3 -7, 2023, in Australia. The title is: Fish use of freshwater river mouths in Lake Michigan, USA. Tyler Hoyt, Carl’s current graduate assistant, and Megan Mader, Carl’s past graduate assistant, are co-authors.
Carl Ruetz met with staff from Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks to discuss issues associated with abundance estimation of stream salmonids.
Al Steinman continues to serve on the following boards: Alliance for the Great Lakes, Goodwill, and West Michigan Symphony. He attends meetings regularly throughout the month.
Al Steinman met with a group from the Michigan Maritime Museum in South Haven.
Al Steinman attended virtually the BeBot group kick-off for the 2023 season.
Al Steinman meets with the Great Lakes Advisory Board, every 2 weeks.
Al Steinman met with a group from True Elements on February 13th.
Al Steinman attended the International Joint Commission’s valuation work group meeting on February 16th.
Al Steinman met with Doug Kindschi, the former GVSU Dean of the Science and Mathematics Department, on February 20th.
Al Steinman has had various meetings throughout the month with GVSU University Development.
Kevin Strychar attended the Michigan Agriculture conference held in East Lansing on February 2nd.
Sean Woznicki served on the BIO cluster hire search committee.
Sean Woznicki is serving as a search committee member for AWRI Executive Director position.
Sean Woznicki is serving on the Biology Department Graduate Program Committee and assisted in review of graduate applications for five teaching assistant positions.
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 ***.
Publications:
Bopi Biddanda and others from his lab published an article in Journal of Great Lakes Research:
Biddanda, B., A. Weinke, and I. Stone. 2023. Extant mat world microbes synchronize migration to a diel tempo. Journal of Great Lakes Research 49(1): 220-228. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0380133022002337
Bopi Biddanda was lead author on two recently published “Postcards from the Field” in Eos:
Biddanda, B., N. Dugener**, I. Stone, A, Weinke, B. Braymer, D. Burlingame, T. Roetman and S. Ruberg. 2023. Observatory wraps up 12 years of Great Lakes estuary watch. Postcards from the Field. Eos, American Geophysical Union, February 3, 2023.
https://americangeophysicalunion.tumblr.com/post/708243937122549760/observatory-wraps-up-12-years-of-great-lakes
Biddanda, B., A, Weinke, I Stone, S. Gandulla, and P. Hartmeyer. 2023. Caught in the act: Daily microbial movement that possibly changed the world. Postcards from the Field. Eos, American Geophysical Union, February 3, 2023.https://americangeophysicalunion.tumblr.com/post/708243930157907968/caught-in-the-act-daily-microbial-movement-that
Presentations:
Bopi Biddanda was the keynote speaker for the GVSU Awards Convocation held in Grand Rapids on February 14th.The title was “Water stories in the Biosphere: From the Laurentian Great Lakes to the Sierra Nevada”.
Bopi Biddanda was a guest lecturer for Earth’s History in the Geology Department on February 21st. The title of his presentation was “Modern-day microbial mats as windows into Earth’s past”.
Christina Catanese and Amanda Syers gave a presentation about the water resources outreach and education program for Michigan Resources on Climate and Land Change Education (MiRCLE) on February 15th.
Rick Rediske presented a webinar for the American Public Health Association on “PFAS contamination in drinking water: how we can improve the Public Health response to impacted communities?” on February 3rd. Alexis Porter was the moderator for this event.
Rick Rediske gave a presentation on February 15th at the Business Law meeting held at the Loosemore Auditorium. The presentation was titled “PFAS, are these chemicals a dragon among us?”.
Al Steinman gave a presentation regarding his work on Bear Lake at the North Muskegon Town Hall on January 12th.
Al Steinman presented at the Harmful Algal Bloom Event in Muskegon on February 23rd.
Grants, Contracts, Awards, and Recognition
GRANTS & CONTRACTS
Mark Luttenton has received funding from the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians to work on alternative methods to control aquatic invasive plants in Lake Leelanau.
AWARDS & RECOGNITION
Charlyn Partridge was awarded a special projects GA from The Graduate School to support a student working on a potential harmful algal bloom project. This would be a collaboration between Charlyn, Al Steinman, and researchers at EPA – Cincinnati, OH.
Carl Ruetz was awarded a special projects GA for the 2023-24 academic year from The Graduate School to support the second year of Tyler Hoyt’s research on yellow perch.
AWRI News and Events
AWRI In The News
Rick Rediske wrote a comment letter on behalf of the Wolverine Community Advisory Group. that the letter raised concerns about the proposed remediation plan for the Rockford Tannery. Representative Debbie Dingell was copied on the letter and she has voiced support for their concerns. She also recognized the role of the citizen’s group Rick was part of in an article in the Detroit News.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2023/02/13/dingell-michigan-egle-wolverine-world-wide-pfas-cleanup-plan/69900334007/
“Grand Valley team chronicles microbial migration related to Earth’s oxygenation.”
GVnext, February 2, 2023
Bopi Biddanda’s research with microbial mats in Lake Huron was highlighted.
Grand Valley team chronicles microbial migration related to Earth's oxygenation - GVNext (gvsu.edu)
“Mona Lake restoration efforts focus on former celery fields, topic of public meeting”
Mlive, February 6, 2023
AWRI is mentioned as a partner in this proposed restoration project.
Mona Lake restoration efforts focus on former celery fields topic of public meeting - mlive.com
“Dingel urges rejection of Wolverine Worldwide tannery PFAS cleanup plan”
MLive, February 17, 2023
Dingell urges rejection of Wolverine Worldwide tannery PFAS cleanup plan - mlive.com
AWRI is mentioned as a partner with WMSRDC in their 2022 annual report.
LMC EVENTS
Feb. 02 – WMEAC Recycling Meeting (1:00 - 4:00 pm)
Feb. 09 - GVSU Citizen Social Science Training (5:30-7:30 pm)
Feb. 14 - Mona Lake Celery Flats Restoration Tech. Committee Mtg. (2:00 - 4:00 pm)
Feb. 16 – GVSU Citizen Social Science Training (5:30 - 7:30 pm)
Feb. 17 – MSU Extension Office, ServSafe Managers Training (8:00 am – 5:00 pm)
Feb. 23 – GVSU Citizen Social Science Training (5:30-7:30 pm)