Images

Staff member from the Great Lakes Commission performing annual monitoring for the Phragmites Adaptive Management Framework (PAMF). Photo Credit: Taaja Tucker-Silva, USGS.

Monitoring invasive Phragmites australis as part of the Phragmites Adaptive Management Framework. Credit: Theresa Gruninger, USGS.

An invasive sea lamprey egg fertilized in the lab at the USGS Hammond Bay Biological Station on August 1, 2022, and photographed at stage 2 of its development. Photo credit: Trisha Searcy, USGS.

Lotus pads (Nelumbo lutea) and cattails (Typha sp.) emerging in the Metzger Marsh Wildlife Area adjacent to Lake Erie. Photo credit: Kaira Liggett, USGS (contractor).

USGS Great Lakes Science Center’s research vessel Kiyi moored at a breakwater in Lake Superior at Grand Marais, Minnesota. Photo credit: Joe Walters, USGS.

USGS Biologist Wes Bickford cutting invasive Phragmites australis underwater. Credit: Spencer Widin, USGS

GLSC’s Kaira Liggett next to a floating mass of cut Phragmites at Metzger Marsh in Oak Harbor, OH. Photo credit: Wes Bickford, USGS.

A sunset on Lake Michigan with the Chicago skyline in the distance as seen from Ogden Dunes Beach within Indiana Dunes National Park, Indiana. Photo credit: Johanna Nifosi, USGS.

Researchers from multiple federal and academic institutions work together to capture, measure, and count fish in a restored coastal wetland habitat using an electrofishing catamaran at the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge, near Saginaw, Michigan. Photo credit: Meagan Froeba, USGS.

USGS technicians sample for fatmucket (Lampsilis siliquoidea) environmental-DNA in the Little Calumet River for a native mussel restoration project at Indiana Dunes National Park, Indiana. Photo credit: Ashley Spoljaric, USGS (contractor).

Great Lakes Science Center fisheries technician Stacey Ireland deploying minnow traps in western Lake Erie to collect fishes for the parasite research team. Photo credit Ed Roseman USGS GLSC. 

A lagoon covered with a floating mat of aquatic plants at West Beach, Indiana Dunes National Park, Indiana. Photo credit: Johanna Nifosi, USGS.

USGS divers “smile" for the underwater camera after a successful algae and mussel collection. Photo credit: Megan Lewan, USGS.

USGS Great Lakes Science Center technician Jared Lesniewicz processes an ichthyoplankton sample during a survey assessing grass carp spawning in the Cuyahoga River, a Lake Erie tributary in Cleveland, Ohio. As of the 2024 sampling season, no grass carp spawning has been documented in the Cuyahoga River. Photo Credit: James Roberts, USGS.

USGS technicians seining for juvenile lake whitefish on a foggy morning in Little Traverse Bay, Lake Superior, with the USGS research vessel Hammond anchored in the background. Photo credit: Mike Lowe, USGS.

In Lake Erie, a USGS scuba diver swims with a smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) who is curious about the diver’s algae and mussel collections. Photo credit: Madeleine Giordano, USGS.

USGS scuba divers collect bottom water for environmental-DNA and nutrient analysis. Photo credit: Shelby Eagan, USGS.

GLSC research ecologist, Nick Johnson (Center), releases sterilized male sea lamprey into the Pigeon River in northeastern Michigan as WIRED Magazine journalist, Michael Tessler (right), photographs the release. GLSC technician, Tyler Bruning (left), pauses his release of sterilized male sea lamprey while Nick’s are photographed.

Watching the clouds roll in as a USGS crew heads back to shore near Olcott, New York, after a day of field work on Lake Ontario. Photo credit: Jessica Oswald, USGS (contractor).

A USGS Great Lakes Science Center scuba diver peers at a clump of Cladophora algae swaying in the Lake Ontario current. Photo credit: Madeleine Giordano, USGS.

Technicians and crewmembers deploying a bottom trawl net off the stern of the USGS research vessel Kiyi in Lake Superior on the west side of Grand Island, Michigan. Photo credit: Lori Evrard, USGS.