In summer 2024, Michigan Sea Grant (MISG) supported five undergraduate students from four Michigan universities as part of its Environmental Internship Program. In mid-August, the interns presented a summary of their research work to date to MISG staff, mentors, family, and other invited guests.
“We coordinate and fund undergraduate students, and they work with local government, state government, federal agencies, nonprofits, sometimes private businesses, and university faculty,” said Silvia Newell, director of Michigan Sea Grant and professor at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability. “The idea is to really give students a hands-on experience of the kind of career options available to them, whether it’s stewardship, education, or fostering management of the Great Lakes.”
The first presenter, Ella Ford, Wayne State University, is working with the Clinton River Watershed Council’s Stream Leaders program to mentor K-12 students and expand the program’s reach. She worked with students in the field to collect aquatic insects, such as stoneflies, damselflies, dragonflies, and water striders, from streams. Ella also taught students how to test water quality based on various parameters like dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, and turbidity.
The results of this fieldwork are made available for public view on the Clinton River Watershed Council’s website. Through this work, Ella’s goal was to grow stewardship in these students through environmental education. To help expand the program, Ella identified several new schools that could join, as well as 48 businesses that could potentially provide volunteer mentors.
“Stream Leaders directly connects students to their watershed,” she said, describing it as, “Fun with a purpose and learning objectives.” She added that, “Not all classrooms have four walls.” The program has reached over 70,000 students since it began, benefiting students and volunteers and fostering stewardship and environmental behaviors among everyone who participates, she said.
Clay Wilton, Lake Superior State University, is helping the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) conduct acoustic monitoring of bat populations in northern Michigan. Populations of bats in the state have been suffering from white nose syndrome, which arrived in New York state in 2006 and spread west from there, resulting in widespread deaths in bats. Clay is helping to determine what species are being most affected and how to focus conservation efforts to protect existing populations by conducting species richness analysis, i.e., which species are in which areas. He is also hoping to better understand habitat preferences of various species.
Clay worked with USFWS staff to sample sites along coastal areas of the eastern Upper Peninsula and northern Lower Peninsula. They used microphones to pick up bat calls and were able to determine the species from those sounds. Initial results seem to indicate that although there was activity among all expected bat species in most areas, it was variable and some had much lower than expected presence. He is now doing statistical analysis of forest types and mapping with species present. Data will be available online in the future.
Abraham Stone, Michigan Technological University, is working with the Keweenaw Community Forest Company, a local nonprofit in the Upper Peninsula, to survey plants along the Keweenaw Peninsula shoreline, hoping to shed light on this unique coastal ecosystem. He is looking at the connections between plants and rocks on the Keweenaw coast and, in particular, how rocks can affect what types of plants grow on them and what types of microhabitats are being formed, based on the structure of rock, waves, and ice influence. Abraham’s work is also developing a method to survey all types of bedrock shorelines, including different lithologies, formations, and microhabitats, including those with specialized plant communities unique to that location. He is also looking along the lakeshore for rare or indicator plants in addition to general plant distribution along geological, geographical, and environmental lines.
“There’s always something to connect with – whether it’s the plants, or the rocks, or the views, or the water, or the sounds,” said Abraham. “Before we study any type of ecosystem, you have to know the ecosystem, and you have to develop a relationship with it. Otherwise you’re missing the point of being a land steward.”
Elliana Prow, Lake Superior State University, is working with the LSSU Center for Freshwater Research and Education to sample zooplankton, larval fish, and other environmental data at beach and nearshore sites in northern Michigan to compare how water depth and time of day affect zooplankton density and biomass and larval fish abundances. In particular, Elliana is looking at how zooplankton affect larval lake whitefish abundances , which are experiencing declines in the Great Lakes. She is accomplishing this task by sampling approximately 20 sites up to three times every two weeks, night and day. In addition to sampling for zooplankton and larval fish, Elliana also collected water quality data. Because of the significant amount of work and travel time it takes to collect these samples – at times the team was out until the early hours of the morning after sampling all night. Elliana is continuing work to process the data collected over the next several months as part of this larger collaboration and her senior undergraduate research thesis.
Jake Downey, University of Michigan, is collaborating with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Charlevoix Fisheries Research Station, to collect population data about chinook salmon to inform predator-prey stocking models. Chinook are not native to Lake Michigan but were introduced in 1967 to control invasive alewife and foster sport fishing. To date, most of the information on their populations in the lake comes from angler harvested fish and is referred to as creel data. Although this information provides large amounts of data, researchers were concerned the data may have selective bias toward larger fish, which are more often caught and retained by anglers. To investigate this hypothesis, Jake and the research team worked with monitoring data collected to monitor potential impacts of a Consumer Energy hydroelectric facility in Ludington, MI. This site, known as the Ludington Pump Storage Facility, is protected by a barrier net, and consultants keep records on chinook collected using gillnets both inside and outside the net. The team was hoping that by combining angler data with independent gillnet data, they would gain a better understanding of chinook age and size to better understand chinook growth and inform stocking numbers. This work is still ongoing but initial analyses are showing that the two types of data complement each other well and that, although the angler data does provide more information about larger fish, the gillnet data provides less biased information on smaller younger fish.
The MISG Internship program supports students pursuing Great Lakes stewardship or research projects with non-profits, academic units, government agencies, or businesses. It is funded in part by the Michael Fraker Student Research Memorial Fund, which honors a former MISG research program manager and his commitment to mentoring the next generation of Great Lakes scientists.
Learn more about the Michigan Sea Grant undergraduate internship program and explore presentations and blog posts from the 2023 intern cohort. See our announcement about this year’s cohort or watch the video recording of the symposium in its entirety.
