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- Feb 28, 2007
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Seeing all these spring photos has me very jealous of the early season in the south and west. I decided to put up some of my shots from past years on field work (some of these have been posted before). These are pictures taken from a course that I teach on limnology and fisheries techniques. The course involves water quality sampling, sediment sampling, collecting plankton, benthic invertebrates and fish (seine nets, gill nets and trap nets).
We take on 15 undergraduate students per year from several different universities. They basically spend 12 h days for 2 weeks to get the equivalent of a 1 semester credit. The days are split between laboratory and field with lectures by myself at night. We have one overnight sampling trip at one of the islands where we check gill net sets through the night every 4 hours. I usually have 3 groups of 5 students and rotate them, 1 group in field two groups in lab the rest of the days. They have to write a written report, usually 25-30 pages, analyzing the data generated from the course.
Also, the fish we generate are used as part of our monitoring program for the area. My lab analyzes the fish tissues for pollutants and submits this information to government agencies. We also look at stable isotopes as tracers to establish feeding ecololgy and age the fish using their otoliths - The last qualifier is just so folks don't get upset about us removing fish. The region we perform this work in supports a very large fisheries so our small number of gill net sets is not relevant compared to what goes on via commercial and much larger angling interests.
Anyhow, enjoy the shots. I have many more but unfortunately have to respect student identies...
Plankton net:
Grab sampler for sediments. Sediments are submited for pollutants. We also sieve out the invertebrates to identify biomass, composition and examine them for contaminants.
The happy prof. doing what he loves to do best
Setting up a trap net, also known as a fyke net. Essentially this is like a big minnow trap, with different compartments that the fish enters via suspended hopes.
A gill net retrieval - with a pike
Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River support the world's largest Musky fisheries at present. Actually considered one of the positive benefits of zebra mussels.
We take on 15 undergraduate students per year from several different universities. They basically spend 12 h days for 2 weeks to get the equivalent of a 1 semester credit. The days are split between laboratory and field with lectures by myself at night. We have one overnight sampling trip at one of the islands where we check gill net sets through the night every 4 hours. I usually have 3 groups of 5 students and rotate them, 1 group in field two groups in lab the rest of the days. They have to write a written report, usually 25-30 pages, analyzing the data generated from the course.
Also, the fish we generate are used as part of our monitoring program for the area. My lab analyzes the fish tissues for pollutants and submits this information to government agencies. We also look at stable isotopes as tracers to establish feeding ecololgy and age the fish using their otoliths - The last qualifier is just so folks don't get upset about us removing fish. The region we perform this work in supports a very large fisheries so our small number of gill net sets is not relevant compared to what goes on via commercial and much larger angling interests.
Anyhow, enjoy the shots. I have many more but unfortunately have to respect student identies...
Plankton net:
Grab sampler for sediments. Sediments are submited for pollutants. We also sieve out the invertebrates to identify biomass, composition and examine them for contaminants.
The happy prof. doing what he loves to do best
Setting up a trap net, also known as a fyke net. Essentially this is like a big minnow trap, with different compartments that the fish enters via suspended hopes.
A gill net retrieval - with a pike
Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River support the world's largest Musky fisheries at present. Actually considered one of the positive benefits of zebra mussels.
