lagoslakes

We Didn’t Start the Fire, but we did research it

By Emily Wasen In the cold months of spring semester 2022, I was sitting in my 8:30am Conservation Biology lecture dreaming of the warmth of summer, wondering what was in store just a few short months when I was told about an undergraduate research assistant job exploring the effects of wildfire. An announcement that wouldContinue reading “We Didn’t Start the Fire, but we did research it“

Earth, Wind and Wildfire

My name is Andrea Paul and in May of 2022, I joined the Data Intensive Landscape Limnology Lab at MSU to work as an undergraduate research assistant with Dr. Ian McCullough. My major is Fisheries and Wildlife with a minor in Environmental Studies and Sustainability. I have had a strong interest in animals since IContinue reading “Earth, Wind and Wildfire”

Duck, Here Come the Big Data!

The Backstory of One Young Graduate Student’s Research By Marcella Domka In August of 2020, I started my ‘next step’ after college as a graduate student at Michigan State University. I knew from the moment I received an invitation to join the Data Intensive Landscape Limnology (DILL, find more at https://bigdatalimno.org/) lab, a lab thatContinue reading “Duck, Here Come the Big Data!”

How a walk in the park provided the “spark” I didn’t know I needed

by Ian McCullough Academic researchers are trained to package their science as neatly manicured manuscripts. We provide an overview of a topic and then describe what we did, what we found and what it all means. Rarely, however, do we hear about how an idea or project came to be in the first place. Today,Continue reading “How a walk in the park provided the “spark” I didn’t know I needed”

LAGOS Launches First US Data Modules and Twitter Campaign!

New and exciting things are happening for the LAGOS (Spanish for lakes) team. After years of hard work, their first core and extension data modules of LAGOS-US have been published. Even better, they are open access, providing the opportunity for wide and free use. The LAGOS-US research platform provides data and tools to study lakeContinue reading “LAGOS Launches First US Data Modules and Twitter Campaign!”

Citizen scientists are important contributors to species distribution data

By Patrick Hanly While citizen scientists are already known to be a vital source of water quality data, they have also been quietly amassing a substantial collection of species records through digital platforms such as the popular iNaturalist. For example, there are 900,000 dragonfly and damselfly records on iNaturalist as of August 2020. Although iNaturalist wasContinue reading “Citizen scientists are important contributors to species distribution data”

Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Summer 2020: An environmental justice approach to data-intensive lake research

By Jessica Díaz Vázquez I joined the Data Intensive Landscape Limnology Lab in October 2018 to gain research experience in the general field of ecology. As I learned more about the database LAGOS and the openness of the lab for interdisciplinary research, I saw an opportunity to incorporate my interest in environmental justice. I grewContinue reading “Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Summer 2020: An environmental justice approach to data-intensive lake research”

Highlight on Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU): MSU math major applies his skills to data-intensive lake research, By Sam Polus

I was motivated to apply for this particular REU position as, growing up in northern Michigan, I have always been interested in nature and ecology, and I wanted to be able to apply my math degree in areas that would allow me to pursue these interests. It has been an amazing learning opportunity for meContinue reading “Highlight on Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU): MSU math major applies his skills to data-intensive lake research, By Sam Polus”

Water quality observations through time in LAGOS-NE by Nicole Smith

This animation shows the accumulation of water quality observations for each of the lakes in the LAGOS-NE database. For each year and lake, the cumulative count of in water quality observations to date is shown by color. The first field observation in the database was recorded in 1933 from Lake Pepin (WI/MN). The lake withContinue reading “Water quality observations through time in LAGOS-NE by Nicole Smith”

LAGOS-NE: The people behind the scenes to create an open database

We are thrilled to announce that the LAGOS-NE data paper is published, which means that the underlying data are live: https://academic.oup.com/gigascience/article/doi/10.1093/gigascience/gix101/4555226 Creating something like LAGOS-NE takes a wide range of contributions, expertise, and types of work. We want to extend a HUGE thanks to everyone who contributed. This effort could not have happened without theContinue reading “LAGOS-NE: The people behind the scenes to create an open database”