A grant has been awarded to Dr. James R. Hodgson, St. Norbert College (SNC), De Pere Wisconsin that funds: 1) a 17-foot electrofishing boat equipped with shocker box capacities to electrofish in both hardwater and softwater systems, 2) a backpack shocker, 3) three Multi-Parameter Monitoring systems YSI 6600 Sondes, and 4) a lap top computer). This equipment is considered to share a common research focus. Additionally, the electrofishing gear and continuous monitoring limnological instrumentation will greatly increase our versatility as an undergraduate teaching institution.
The boat and backpack shocker will allow us to collect fish of different species and sizes from our experimental lakes. Monitoring fish recruitment, growth rate and diet (including tracing 13C isotope though the food web) is essential to the overall goals of the current research design. Obtaining fish diet data is central to our ecosystem approach to resolving questions relative to the importance of within-system primary production versus terrestrial organic matter in fueling lake ecosystem food webs. To answer the question to what degree do top carnivores (e.g. largemouth bass) depend on lake primary producers or on terrestrial and wetland plants as a carbon source depends on reliable means of fish collection. The multi-parameter water monitoring systems will allow us to meter a suite of limnological properties at a fine scale of all our study lakes. The YSI multi-parameter monitors will allow for measurement of whole-system gross primary production and respiration using continuous diel (daily) O2 measurements over the duration of the project in all experimental lakes simultaneously.
Additionally, this instrumentation will provide continued opportunities for SNC to further develop its capacity to use the Fox River and the bay of Green Bay as a convenient undergraduate aquatics laboratory (e.g. ecology, limnology and environmental chemistry) and independent student research and senior theses. Aquatic research is one of the emphases of the faculty in biology and environmental science and with the improvement of water quality of the Fox River, sampling gear appropriate for large riverine habitats becomes an ever increasingly high priority.
