Images

While tied up at a boat launch on Lake Michigan, preparing the Great Lakes Science Center’s R/V Stonecat for a day of field work, the research team was met with a surprise: A car boat coming in off the water!

Members of the USGS Great Lakes Science Center’s Cladophora Project team posed for a socially distanced photo before sampling in Lake Huron. The Great Lakes Integrated Cladophora Assessment Project is a Great Lakes-wide study into whether nuisance Cladophora algae could be managed by limiting phosphorus inputs.

After making a splash in Lake Huron, diver and USGS Great Lakes Science Center contractor, Ashley Spoljaric (Chesterton, Indiana) will survey the area for the nuisance algae Cladophora and invasive dreissenid mussel populations as part of the Great Lakes Integrated Cladophora Assessment Project.

Larval fish collected during icthyoplankton sampling in Lake Michigan as part of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative (CSMI) that targeted Lake Michigan in 2020.

The USGS completed numerous fishery research surveys safely on the Great Lakes in 2020; masked scientists aboard the USGS Research Vessel Sturgeon rinse a Tucker trawl net during ichthyoplankton sampling on Lake Michigan.

USGS contractor Victoria Conn counting and measuring invasive dreissenid mussels in a laboratory at the GLSC Lake Michigan Ecological Research Station (Chesterton, Indiana) as part of the Great Lakes Integrated Cladophora Assessment Project.

A USGS Autonomous Underwater Vehicle illuminates the lake floor in Grand Traverse Bay, Lake Michigan, remotely sensing invasive Round Goby, invasive mussels, and nuisance algae and mapping aquatic habitats to support fisheries management in the Great Lakes.

Smallmouth bass seen while SCUBA diving in Lake Erie as part of the Great Lakes Integrated Cladophora Assessment Project.

A USGS Great Lakes Science Center contractor uses an underwater quadrat to survey the nuisance algae Cladophora and invasive dreissenid mussel populations in Lake Erie as part of the Great Lakes Integrated Cladophora Assessment Project.

A “bloater,” also known as a deepwater cisco, caught in Lake Ontario from the USGS Great Lakes Science Center’s research vessel Kaho—they are one of several native coregonine species recently highlighted in the winter 2021 edition of DOI Newswave. Read more at: https://ww

SCUBA tanks secured as a Great Lakes Science Center small vessel motors through the water to a dive site on Lake Erie where researchers will survey for the nuisance algae, Cladophora, as part of the Great Lakes Integrated Cladophora Assessment Project.

Filtering water with a vacuum pump to measure water quality and perform a nutrient analysis as part of the Great Lakes Integrated Cladophora Assessment Project - and - filtering COVID with a mask.

After a day of deploying an autonomous underwater vehicle along the shore of Lake Michigan, the field team encountered dark skies while returning to port in Grand Haven, Michigan.

Landscape view of the water control structure at Maankiki Marsh Complex – Center unit: a hydrologically restored wetland unit at the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge.

The USGS Hammond Bay Biological Station, a field station of the Great Lakes Science Center, located near Millersburg, Michigan.

Phytoplankton, including diatoms, viewed under a microscope. Phytoplankton occupy the lower levels of the food web.

Native vs. Not: A native water flea (Leptodora kindtii; left and clear) and an invasive spiny water flea (Bythotrephes longimanus; right and purple) share space under a microscope after being collected from Lake Huron during a hydroacoustics survey.

These images show grass carp larvae from the Maumee River. Characteristics of larval grass carp include overall length (left), skeletal muscle development (center) and presence of an eye spot that lacks pigmentation (right; pigment starting to develop on lower eye).

A pectoral spine cross section from invasive grass carp captured in the Great Lakes. These cross sections are used to determine the age of the fish.

Cross section of a fish vertebra. Useful for determining the age of a fish.

National Geographic photographer, Keith Ladzinski, photographs live sea lamprey at Hammond Bay Biological Station on September 11, 2019 for an expansive article featuring the Great Lakes.