The University of Wisconsin-Madison is awarded a grant to upgrade the analytical capacity of the Trout Lake Station, a year-round biological field station operated by the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with respect to water chemistry and radioisotope analysis by acquiring a gas chromatograph and a liquid scintillation counter. Discoveries of the past decade have substantially changed our views of lakes in landscape carbon cycles and fluxes of greenhouse gases. The equipment provided under this award will contribute to research in biogeochemistry, food web dynamics and microbial ecology leading to an understanding the roles of freshwater systems in landscape carbon cycles.
Located in the Northern Highland Lake District in northern Wisconsin, the station provides access to a wide variety of aquatic ecosystems and their surrounding landscapes. More than 2500 lakes are within 50km of the station. The station has a long history of aquatic research that has produced over 1000 publications to date, with 166 peer-reviewed publications and 21 graduate student theses in the past five years. In addition to fostering research, the Trout Lake Station is used regularly for field trips by undergraduate and graduate courses from universities throughout the Midwest.
