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Limnology News LIMNOLOGY NEWS News for Alumni and Friends of the Center for Limnology Fall 2017 Putting Algae on the Front Page Read more on page 6 Photo by Jeff Miller 3 Steve Carpenter Retires 4 A Tale of Two Lakes 8 Zebra Mussels Run Amok Photo by Jeff Miller From the Director More than any year in recent temperate lakes. Moreover, we are currently in the midst history, 2017 has been a year of an international search for a new director at TLS. of transitions for the Center for Limnology (CFL). Professor and As suggested by the fact that I’m writing this column, former Director Steve Carpenter I’ve stepped in as the new director of the CFL. A bit retired (page 3) at the end of about myself: I grew up in Wisconsin’s Fox River Valley, summer, and is now a self- attended Neenah High School, did my undergraduate and proclaimed ‘free-range scientist.’ graduate degrees at McGill University and, in 2001, was We are excited that Steve will fortunate enough to get a faculty job back in my home stick around in his retirement and state of Wisconsin. Madison has been a fantastic place to continue to do free-range science. live and work during the last 16 years. And, needless to say, I feel both fortunate and deeply humbled to join the Steve isn’t the only CFL figure ranks of past CFL directors (Steve Carpenter, Jim Kitchell, who headed to greener pastures John Magnuson, and Art Hasler). this year. Trout Lake Station (TLS) Director Tim Kratz (page 5) moved to Duluth with his wife, Cathy, and All this change brings many challenges, but it also retired after more than 36 years at UW-Madison and 17 provides an opportunity for growth and re-invention. We years leading our iconic Northwoods research station are charting a course to be stronger than ever - building on Trout Lake. TLS also lost its research technician on our strength of conducting top-notch research in extraordinaire, Tim Meinke (page 10), who retired after Wisconsin and around the world, while also expanding 34 years with the North Temperate Lakes Long Term in new directions and deepening our commitment to the Ecological Research (NTL LTER) program. The Wisconsin Idea and serving the people of the state and beyond. But, fear not. Our ranks are being replenished. The CFL is delighted to welcome Hilary Dugan (page 3) as the As the new director, I look forward to staying in touch newest faculty member of the CFL family. Hilary brings and getting to know friends of the CFL. Please don’t exciting new expertise to the CFL, having previously hesitate to drop me a note, and enjoy this issue of the worked on a wide range of topics in arctic, antarctic, and CFL’s Limnology News. Hasler Laboratory of Limnology 680 N. Park Street Madison, WI 53706 Trout Lake Station 3110 Trout Lake Station Dr. Boulder Junction, WI 54512 2 Limnology News Steve Carpenter Retires from CFL Hilary Dugan by Adam Hinterthuer Joins CFL Faculty Steve Carpenter, director of the CFL and Stephen Alfred Forbes professor of Integrative Biology (Zoology), retired after 28 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Widely recognized as one of the world’s most influential researchers in the fields of limnology and ecosystem science, Carpenter leaves a legacy that will endure not just here at the CFL, but throughout the ecological sciences and in lakes, rivers and streams across Wisconsin and the globe. “If you went to any freshwater research institute in the world,” says Jake Vander Zanden, new director of the CFL, “and asked the researchers there who the leading scientist was in their field, they would all say ‘Steve Carpenter.’ Steve helped change not only the way we We are thrilled to announce that the study freshwater systems, but also how Department of Integrative Biology has we manage them and work to conserve hired Hilary Dugan to be an assistant them.” professor and a faculty member at the Carpenter spent his career combining CFL. Here are a few things to know theoretical modeling, long-term studies, about the newest addition to Hasler Lab: and whole-ecosystem experiments Hometown: Woodstock, Ontario, to inform our understanding and Canada management of freshwater resources. His work showed that phosphorus Educational background: BSc, from agricultural activity is the leading Queen’s University, 2008; MSc, contributor to poor water quality in lakes. Queen’s University, 2010; Ph.D., He helped build scientists’ ability to University of Illinois at Chicago, 2014 forecast potentially harmful algal blooms and pioneered work on how disturbances in How did you get into your field of ecosystems can cascade up or down the food web, leading to dramatic change. research? I was always fascinated by Monica Turner, Eugene P. Odum professor of ecology at UW-Madison, says Carpenter’s earth sciences, and how ecosystems skill as a scientist was matched by a willingness and ability to collaborate. With his “active worked. During my undergrad, I support, praise and commitment to his colleagues,” she says, he helped establish the worked as a research assistant in the UW-Madison as a leader in the ecological sciences and “helped all boats to rise, not just Canadian Arctic and fell in love with his own.” fieldwork and studying global change. Michael L. Pace, a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the At some point, my interests narrowed University of Virginia, agrees. “It is hard to think of another scientist who makes those to water and, eventually, lakes. Having working with him so much better,” he says. grown up around lakes, this was probably a natural progression, but it Pace calls Carpenter a “brilliant and creative” scientist and compares him to legendary took me awhile to get there. musician Ray Charles who could sing a song perfectly on the first take and became known in the business as “One-Take Ray.” What attracted you to UW–Madison? As a limnologist, there’s no better place “Steve is the ‘One-Take Ray’ of scientific paper writing,” says Pace. “He somehow in the world to study lakes. visualizes a paper and knows before hitting the keyboard how he wants to play the song. Favorite place on campus? The I’ve never seen anyone who was better or more efficient.” Memorial Union is top in my books. Among many other awards and accomplishments, Carpenter is the former President If you can’t be out on Lake Mendota, of the Ecological Society of America, co-founder of the scientific journal Ecosystems, spending time on its shore is the next a member of the National Academy of Sciences and recipient of the 2011 Stockholm best thing. Water Prize, widely regarded as the “Nobel Prize” of freshwater sciences. What are you most enjoying so far While he is stepping away from the administrative and teaching duties of his previous about working here? UW-Madison felt titles, Carpenter will still continue to conduct research as an like home the minute I started working emeritus professor or, as he calls it, “free-range scientist.” here. Across campus, people are When he isn’t cooped up in his office writing papers on big welcoming and collaborative. Campus ecological themes, he’ll more than likely be fighting invasive is a giant hive of activity and it is easy to species and restoring native prairie plants on his land in get lost in all of the opportunities. Wisconsin’s driftless area west of Madison. limnology.wisc.edu 3 Today, I woke up at my favorite place on December 15th this year, I texted my A Tale of earth – Ten Mile Lake, in Hackensack, mom: “Is Ten Mile frozen?” “Almost,” Minnesota. On the coldest day of the she responded. winter thus far, the frozen lake is so Two Lakes We have this conversation every bright, so sparkly, it is hard to look at. year, but this year felt different. Lake And when you are from a place where by Samantha Oliver Mendota seemed close to freezing. I 30 below is often the actual temperature couldn’t remember a time when the two From CFL Blog post, (NOT the wind chill), you rely less on lakes froze within a week of each other. January 18, 2017 the calendar to define the seasons and Mendota always seemed to be frozen a more on observations of specific events month less than Ten Mile. But lakes are tied to the climate. losing ice cover and colder places are Summer, to me, never began on the warming faster. Maybe, I thought, the day with the most sunlight, but rather two lakes’ ice seasons are converging on the day the dock was installed (and because of climate changes. Was my ended, of course, when the dock was hometown becoming more like my new removed). Winter and spring were town? always announced by the day the lake I was hesitant to believe my own froze and thawed. conclusions because human perception Then I moved to relatively tropical of climate change is complicated. Our Madison, where winter is shorter, but beliefs are influenced by our experiences the lakes still provide a checkpoint in – if you can remember ice fishing in our urban phenology. But now my November as a kid, but not as an adult, Ten Mile Lake in winter observations are set up as a study of you might feel certain that climate Photo: Sam Oliver contrasts: my asparagus came up two change is affecting ice duration. But, if weeks sooner than my mom’s or subtract you already believe climate change is not 10 degrees from Madison’s temperature real, you might instead remember the to guess Hackensack’s temperature.
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