On September 11, a routine Lake Mendota field trip for a UW Limnology course turned out to be anything but routine.
Undergraduate students sampling the lake’s plankton asked Jake Vander Zanden to take a look at their sample. Vander Zanden, an associate professor of Zoology at the Center for Limnology and an expert on aquatic invasive species, was stunned to see the jar teeming with a new exotic species: spiny water fleas.
These carnivorous crustaceans invaded the Great Lakes 20 years ago, but were not found in Lake Mendota. Vander Zanden said that because there is little pre-invasion data on small lakes that have already been invaded, the effect on Lake Mendota cannot be predicted.
An enormous database on pre-invasion conditions in Lake Mendota will provide an opportunity to study how this invasion will play out, but Vander Zanden believes there is little reason to think the changes will be positive.
Still, the discovery served as an inspiration for the students who collected the sample. Joanna Klass, one of the students who discovered the species, said “Finding this animal told me, 'I can do research. I can find new things.' It gave me a sense of ... doing hands-on research." For more, see the full story.