{"id":4388,"date":"2018-04-19T17:12:55","date_gmt":"2018-04-19T22:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/for-wisconsin\/?post_type=campus_story&p=4388"},"modified":"2018-04-19T17:12:55","modified_gmt":"2018-04-19T22:12:55","slug":"uw-la-crosse-grad-usgs-scientist-takes-aim-at-great-lakes-invaders","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/uw-la-crosse-grad-usgs-scientist-takes-aim-at-great-lakes-invaders\/","title":{"rendered":"UW-La Crosse grad, USGS scientist takes aim at Great Lakes invaders"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
UW-La Crosse December 2017 graduate and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Biologist Nick Schloesser worked at USGS as an undergraduate student. He began a full-time career at USGS after his 2008 graduation and continued while earning his UWL master\u2019s degree in biology. Through a \u201ccareer pathways\u201d position, he was able to build his master\u2019s thesis around a project that would be important to protecting the Great Lakes ecosystem and its fisheries.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sea lamprey have a nasty bite. This blood-sucking parasite could kill more than 100 million pounds of Great Lakes fish annually if left unchecked, according to the\u00a0Great Lakes Fishery Commission<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we didn\u2019t have controls, we wouldn\u2019t have a fishery to speak of \u2014 recreational, commercial or tribal,\u201d says Marc Gaden, communications director for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. \u201cBeyond that effect, they would destroy the ecosystem from the top down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick Schloesser, a recent UW-La Crosse graduate who is also a\u00a0U.S. Geological Survey<\/a>biologist, is adding to the body of knowledge to protect the world\u2019s largest collective body of fresh water from the bitter bite of the lamprey. He shared his finds related to using Environmental DNA monitoring to help control populations of lamprey in December as part of his UWL master\u2019s thesis project.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis (eDNA monitoring) is certainly state-of-the-art and something the fishery commission is interested in,\u201d says Gaden. It could save money and time in assessing streams and rivers to determine where to control lamprey, he adds.<\/p>\n

Schloesser\u2019s research opportunity and student-scientist status came about because of a long-term cooperative educational agreement between UWL and USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, located on French Island.<\/p>\n

Sea lamprey\u2019s bitter bite<\/h3>\n

The sea lamprey, an invasive species, entered the Great Lakes in the early 1920s. Its toll was so high on specific species of fish that, by the late 1950s, it was a major factor in the collapse of the Great Lakes fishery. Since then, the U.S. and Canada have partnered to find solutions, forming the Great Lakes Fishery Commission in 1955. Today the commission reports successfully reducing the sea lamprey population by 90 percent\u00a0in most areas of the Great Lakes. Yet control requires constant tweaking, says Randy Hines, U.S. Geological Survey wildlife biologist.<\/p>\n

Wildlife managers have used many techniques to control sea lamprey from toxic chemicals to barrier dams. However, lamprey are still an economic and ecological concern that costs millions of dollars to fisheries every year in loss of large Great Lakes fish and eradication efforts. Wisely spending budget dollars on eradication depends largely on aiming these controls effectively.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Nick Schloesser came to UWL after a career in graphic design. His love of the outdoors attracted him to biology, which he pursued despite being convinced at a young age that he\u2019d never be \u201ca natural at math.\u201d Schloesser struggled at times with college courses in math and science, but he didn\u2019t give up and sought help from faculty. \u201cI feel like I don\u2019t have to be gifted at something to be good at it \u2014 I just have to put forth the effort,\u201d he says.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Improving lamprey control<\/h3>\n
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Schloesser\u2019s master\u2019s project leveraged his experience as a UWL graduate research student with experience working at USGS. His graduate thesis project aimed to provide more guidance in determining the location of sea lampreys to save budgets and time.<\/p>\n

To control sea lamprey, Canadian and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists begin by assessing tributaries to determine which ones contain larval sea lampreys. Lamprey are constantly sloughing off cells from their bodies, leaving remnants of DNA \u2014 called Environmental DNA \u2014 in river or stream sediment, says Schloesser. Through his UWL research, he found Environmental DNA monitoring could potentially be one more tool to determine the concentration of lamprey in a particular stream.<\/p>\n

Schloesser\u2019s finds could save time, money and effort as the typical method for monitoring sea lamprey is physical monitoring, says Hines. \u201ceDNA allows for that rapid screening \u2014 doing more waters, more efficiently,\u201d says Hines. \u201cIt definitely serves a big need from a national and international perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Research project spawned from partnership<\/h3>\n

Nick Schloesser\u2019s research project is a product of UWL\u2019s long-term Cooperative Educational Agreement with the USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center. A partnership between USGS and UWL\u2019s River Studies Center started back in the 1970s, allowing UWL students to conduct research with USGS scientists focused primarily on river science and fish health. Today the partnership encompasses a variety of UWL disciplines.<\/p>\n

Hines says the collaboration brings strength to their team of scientists through professional interactions with UWL faculty. It also helps them attract talent as many of UWL\u2019s undergraduate and graduate students transition into full-time work at USGS.<\/p>\n

Both Hines and Roger Haro, UWL\u2019s\u00a0interim associate dean for the College of Science and Health, say the partnership allows them to share resources and help students find links between classroom work and real-world science. Students who gain experience working with USGS scientists often move into careers as leaders in the scientific community at the state and federal level, says Haro. And many of those scientists stay connected to UWL, becoming resources and even serving on the university\u2019s graduate committees, he adds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sea lamprey have a nasty bite. This blood-sucking parasite could kill more than 100 million pounds of Great Lakes fish annually if left unchecked, according to the\u00a0Great Lakes Fishery Commission. \u201cIf we didn\u2019t have controls, we wouldn\u2019t have a fishery to speak of \u2014 recreational, commercial or tribal,\u201d says Marc Gaden, communications director for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":4391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[104],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-4388","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-la-crosse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/4388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=4388"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=4388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}