The UW Trout Lake Research Station in Vilas County is a center for studying the state’s lakes.
The Northwoods is home to many freshwater lakes.
At the UW Trout Lake Research Station, scientists research topics either brought forward by the community or questions of national or international interest in terms of the long term health of the world’s waters.
The station has a lot of projects up and running right now.
Gretchen Gerrish, Director of Trout Lake, described one project they have in collaboration with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
In a couple of lakes like Crystal Lake and Sparking Lake, people introduced an invasive species of fish called smelt.
They’re a delicious species of fish that lots of people like to fry up, but they’ve taken a stronghold in these lakes over the past 20 to 30 years.
Trout Lake Station has been working to reduce the Smelt population.
“In the past few years, we've been there, been reintroducing Cisco to the lakes, to see if, with the Smelt numbers down, if we can bring back the native Cisco fish, and we're in the midst of that study. And so they've transferred a number of Cisco in and are looking at if they reestablish, if they continue to decline, the Smelt numbers,” explained Gerrish.
She said they’re also looking for participants who would be open to an interview with their graduate student researcher.
The Zaaga’iganan Kinship Project focuses on lakes associated with the Lac du Flambeau tribe, Vilas County, and Oneida County.
“We're looking at people who have long time lived in the region, who maybe moved here more recently, or people who just come to visit the region, and how the interactions with lakes help us to define what a healthy lake looks like and how humans interact and value lake systems in the region,” explained Gerrish.
She said that the goal in this kind of study is to step back and hear from people to learn better what types of questions may be most relevant to all the different community members engaging with the waters up here.
There are openings for this study, and others at the station.
There’s been a lot of concern about declining Walleye populations in the state.
At Trout Lake, they’re approaching that topic from a different angle; looking instead at the places where walleye are doing best and then trying to figure out why that is.
It’s called the Bright Spots project.
Here is Gretchen Gerrish.
“By focusing on places where they are succeeding, is kind of flipping the script, asking, Okay, if we see them succeeding, how can we create those environments?” said Gerrish.
For the past four years, they’ve also been looking into lake phenology, or a lake’s changes over time in relation to seasons.
Ice on and off dates are very dynamic, and that has big implications for the rest of the ecosystem.
For example, if there’s an early ice off, confused fishes try to spawn.
“And this is something that hasn't been recorded in our 40 year time set, and that people haven't really talked about before,” explained Gerrish.
They want to understand the seasonal interactions between food web links.
