Karen Alofs 🐟

Great to see new work lead by @pjflood.bsky.social out in @globalchangebio.bsky.social this week. Another piece from our collaboration with @michigandnr.bsky.social examining recently digitized historical lake survey data.
news.umich.edu/fishes-young...

Creatures buried in soil for over a century burst back to life in Toronto waterfront A project to restore coastal wetland leads to astonishing discoveries of a host of life: seeds and plant scraps, as well as water fleas, worms, larvae and plankton

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o... #restoration #toronto

Come work at the UMich Biological Station as a Michigan Fellow (you don't have to be a biologist)! Apply today: societyoffellows.umich.edu/uncategorize...

If you're in northern Michigan, drop by the U-M Biological Station in Pellston on July 30 for MISG Director Silvia Newell's talk about nitrogen as a driver of harmful algal blooms in the Great Lakes: buff.ly/V5tTtjA @newelllab.bsky.social

"Michigan Sea Grant is a smart investment" in a banner over a photo from Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

Michigan Sea Grant is a smart investment: We turned $19 million of federal and state funding into nearly $86 million in direct economic benefits for Michigan in 2018-23 💪

Also a highlight by Carol Thompson in the Detroit News www.detroitnews.com/story/news/l...

Please share this commentary by scientists and collaborators at the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR) outlining the enormous benefits of investments in Great Lakes Research. kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F...

Trump’s Proposed Budget Would Cut a Major Ecology Program

The USGS ecosystems research program doesn't just study wildlife. Its researchers work on rangelands and forests, fisheries and aquaculture, and critically, wildfire.

Trump's proposed budget eliminates this program entirely, allocating $0 for 2026.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/c...

Mismatch between climate-based bioenergetics model of fish growth and long-term and regional-scale empirical data Climate-driven decreases in body size have been documented for a variety of taxa and proposed as a universal response to climate change. However, empirical support among taxa, including fishes, has be...

New publication from our group at UMich in collaboration with MI DNR.

Mismatch between climate-based bioenergetics model of fish growth and long-term and regional-scale empirical data

🐟 🧪 🌎

doi.org/10.1139/cjfa...

Trophic disruption by an invasive species linked to altered energy fluxes The Trophic Disruption Hypothesis (TDH) predicts that invasive species may cause native species to undergo trophic dispersion (change in trophic-niche area) and trophic displacement (diet switching),...

New OA paper out this week!🚨This one is particularly meaningful for me as it is the final part of my dissertation to be published, and it is the project I set out to do when I started my PhD – Did African Jewelfish alter the Everglades aquatic food web? 1/n 🧪🐟🌎🧵

doi.org/10.1002/ecs2...

USGS cuts would jeopardize leading wildlife research - The Wildlife Society The loss of personnel and entire research arms would affect our ability to monitor wildlife populations

It is hard to imagine a world without the USGS Ecosystems Mission, the bird banding lab, the Coop Unit program, etc. but apparently that is what America voted for and what this administration plans to do: wildlife.org/usgs-cuts-wo...

The search for Lake Superior ciscoes as described by W. Koelz in 1929 yields a surprising discovery: Shortnose Cisco (Coregonus reighardi), a presumed extinct species The Laurentian Great Lakes (LGL) formed following the retreat of the Wisconsin glaciation 15-9 ka and provided a vast volume of freshwater habitat for coregonines, which included a diverse endemic com...

A light in the midst of a lot of chaos and uncertainty in #GreatLakes science-

Using genetics and morphology, we discovered a fish that was once presumed extinct still swims in Lake Superior. #CiscoInferno🔥 🐟🧬
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Sea lamprey control program receives OK to rehire federal workers after initial scare The Great Lakes sea lamprey control program has the OK to rehire three dozen federal employees it needs to combat the eel-like, invasive fish species.

While this is good news, the #GreatLakes lamprey control program is now several weeks behind schedule for this year's treatment, and it’s still unclear how many of the previously-fired workers will actually choose to return www.michiganpublic.org/environment-...

NOAA firings hit the birthplace of weather and climate forecasting Dismissed researchers were improving severe weather predictions

My latest: The mass firings at NOAA can feel abstract. Here's what was lost at one research center -- the birthplace of climate modeling.

Fired staff became U.S. citizens to pursue these dream jobs, only to have their dreams upended.

NSF fact sheet

The National Science Foundation benefits communities in every state.

Among the other great points in this statement, “Every dollar spent on conservation in the US has a positive return of 2.4 times its original investment.” Conserving natural resources is good business. 🐟🐠🎣

A screenshot of a Facebook post from the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory

NOAA's #GreatLakes Environmental Research Lab will be taking an "indefinite hiatus" from communications due to staff cuts. GLERL communicates critical weekly updates about the extent of harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie - like the one that left my hometown of Toledo without drinking water in 2014

Trump firings hit Great Lakes sea lamprey program, Michigan forestry workers | Great Lakes Now Fish and wildlife officials tasked with holding back a species that would otherwise decimate the Great Lakes fishery were among those caught up in a mass purge of federal workers.

Dozens of workers focused on lamprey control were among scores of Michigan federal workers fired without notice in the past week

Story by @bridgemi.com: www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/02/trum...

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative cleans up our lakes and rivers. Literally removing toxic substances that cause things like fish deformities. It’s been supported by both parties for decades (including JD Vance)

This is our money. The people of Michigan want it used to clean up our Lakes.

A pink box with heart border and text reading, "We Love Our Federal Fisheries Workforce! Federal fisheries professionals are American heroes who safekeep our fisheries and aquatic resources for all of us."

Today, we share our love for federal #fisheries professionals who work tirelessly to address the myriad problems facing our nation’s fisheries. We urge the Administration to stop indiscriminate mass firings and to build and maintain a sufficient federal natural resource workforce.

NOAA includes offices like us! We fund and conduct work like:
- hands-on teacher trainings
- sturgeon restoration
- grad student research
- learn-to-fish camps
- flood recovery and prevention

Every federal $1 that goes to a Sea Grant program reaps $3 in benefits for coastal communities!

After decades, lake trout restored to sustainable levels in Lake Superior After the population of Lake Superior's top predator fish fell by 95%, the lake trout restoration effort has returned it to sustainable levels, researchers say.

After decades, lake trout restored to sustainable levels in Lake Superior

#GreatLakes

www.wmuk.org/2024-11-20/a...

Translating science into actions to conserve Amazonian freshwaters Freshwaters of the Amazon are experiencing unprecedented changes, but decades of research and practice have produced a rich foundation for advancing management solutions. Through a comprehensive revi...

Freshwaters of the Amazon are experiencing unprecedented impacts, but decades of research and practice have produced a rich foundation for advancing management solutions. We identified 63 actions that combined could change the game. In Cons Sci & Pract
conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Juvenile zebra mussel attached to a fish.

One of our weird discoveries: 1st field-documented case of a zebra mussel attached to a fish (lake chub). This phoretic association could facilitate 1) within-basin spread of zebra mussels via fish migration & 2) overland transport by anglers moving baitfish. redpath-staff.mcgill.ca/ricciardi/Ri...

YouTube video by TVO Docs The Last Whitefish | Episode 1 | All Too Clear: Beneath the Surface of the Great Lakes |TVO Original

See what lies below the waves of the Great Lakes. An excellent doc that explores the impact of invasive mussels on the underwater ecosystem. Very nice ROV images of fish, wrecks, bottom habitats, etc.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=udbk...

Great opportunity for grad students/Postdocs from any of the 10 CASS societies, including IAGLR. Deadline to apply is Oct 1!

Historical Field Records Reveal Habitat as an Ecological Correlate of Locomotor Phenotypic Diversity in the Radiation of Neotropical Geophagini Fishes | The American Naturalist Abstract Phenotypic macroevolutionary studies provide insight into how ecological processes shape biodiversity. However, the complexity of phenotype-ecology relationships underscores the importance of...

Astudillo-Clavijo et al. mine hundreds of archived field records for habitat data, and assess the relationship between habitat use and swimming morphology in the continent-wide radiation of Neotropical cichlids. Read now ahead of print!
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Please help us honor Mike’s work and continue his legacy by donating to the Michael Fraker Student Research Memorial Fund: buff.ly/3soClAF

Image of a colorful, gold and blue, rainbow darter and University of Michigan SEAS Block M logo PhD Position in Environmental Change and Freshwater Fishes We are interested in what traits make species vulnerable to climate change versus other factors, what controls species invasions, and how we can improve restoration efforts—among other questions. Our research ranges from physiological experiments to modelling changes in species distribution over large regions and long time periods. We work with historical data and museum specimens and collaborate with practitioners across the Great Lakes Basin and from varied disciplines.

We are looking for a new PhD Student to start in the Lab in Fall 2024. Applications are due Dec 1. Please share and if you are interested reach out!