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Installation of the rainfall exclusion experiment at the KBS LTER, one of the new treatments added to the experiment in 2021.

January 10, 2023

MSU's Long-Term Ecological Research program awarded $7.65 million NSF grant

Tags:

NSF LTER, agricultural systems, long-term data collection, research

The W.K. Kellogg Biological Station Long-Term Ecological Research program at Michigan State University was awarded a renewal of their foundational grant, reaffirming the program’s future and status as one of the country’s premier research sites. Continuation funding for the program began on Dec. 1, 2022 and will run through November 2028. MSU animal ecologist Nick Haddad and microbial ecologist Sarah Evans led the grant proposal, “Ecological and social mechanisms of resilience in agroecosystems.” In it, they detail the program’s new focus on climate change and land use change.

June 24, 2021

Are zebra mussels eating or helping toxic algae?

Tags:

Integrative Biology, Microcystis, NSF LTER, algae, cascading effects, faculty, long-term data collection, natural ecosystems, research, zebra mussels

While invasive zebra mussels consume small plant-like organisms called phytoplankton, MSU researchers Stephen Hamilton and Orlando Sarnelle discovered during a long-term study that zebra mussels can actually increase Microcystis, a type of phytoplankton known as “blue-green algae” or cyanobacteria, that forms harmful floating blooms. The study, titled Cascading effects: Insights from the U.S. Long Term Ecological Research Network, is one of five projects recently highlighted in a special feature in the Ecological Society of America’s journal, Ecosphere.