Why are Wisconsin’s walleye declining?

As lakes in the upper Midwest warm due to climate change, this cool-water species has found itself with less habitat in which to thrive. Yet the percentage of walleye that state and tribal resource managers allow to be harvested each year has stayed about the same.

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Study finds “hidden harvest” in world’s inland fisheries

A new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says we are dramatically underestimating the role inland fisheries play in global food security.

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Green spaces in cities help control floods, store carbon

A new study finds that urban green spaces like backyards, city parks and golf courses contribute substantially to the ecological fabric of our cities — and the wider landscape — and should be included in ecological data.

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Amid environmental change, lakes surprisingly static

In recent decades, change has defined our environment in the United States. Agriculture intensified. Urban areas sprawled. The climate warmed. Intense rainstorms became more common. But, says a new University of Wisconsin–Madison study, while those kinds of changes usually result in poor water quality, lakes have surprisingly stayed the same.

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First, but not last, algae bloom spells danger for Madison swimmers, fish

Steve Carpenter couldn’t believe the view from his second-floor office on the shoreline of Lake Mendota. As far as he could see, the still water looked just like teal-blue paint.

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When it comes to biological populations, expect the unexpected

More than three decades of data on the physical, chemical and biological variables in 11 Midwestern lakes show that while lake temperatures and nutrient concentrations rise within relatively expected ranges, organisms achieve high population extremes. The findings challenge preconceptions about what a “normal” distribution of averages and extremes looks like.

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Zebra mussels invade Lake Mendota

Last fall, students in a UW-Madison undergraduate limnology lab found invasive zebra mussels living in Lake Mendota for the first time. Researchers monitoring for the invader continued to see the mussel only sporadically. Sometime in the last four months, however the team has started to find them congregating in large numbers all over Lake Mendota.

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