For the second consecutive year, The Journal of Great Lakes Research has given its annual award for best peer-reviewed paper to a researcher affiliated with the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment. Thomas Johengen received the 2009 Chandler-Misener Award for a paper titled, "Stimulation of Lake Michigan plankton metabolism by sediment resuspension and river runoff." He co-authored the paper with fellow researchers Bopaiah A. Biddanda and James B Cotner.
David Allan, professor and acting dean of the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment, will be honored Sunday (May 17) for outstanding contributions to all fields of benthic science with the "Award of Excellence" from the North American Benthological Society. The 1,500-member international organization is conducting its 57th annual meeting this year in Grand Rapids, Mich.í‚ Benthic science refers collectively to all aquatic organisms that live on, in or near the bottom (substratum) of water bodies, and the bottom environment itself. This includes organisms inhabiting running and standing waters, and also applies to organisms from saltwater and freshwater habitats.
Allen Burton, professor and chair of the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences at Wright State University, has been named director of the Cooperative Institute for Limnology and Ecosystem Research (CILER) at the Universityof Michigan effective Aug. 1. Professor Burton will hold a simultaneous appointment as a professor in U-M's School of Natural Resources and Environment, which houses CILER.
The immune system of the Great Lakes is breaking down and the ecosystem is in danger of collapse, according to a new report released today by the region’s leading scientists. The report underscores the urgent need for comprehensive restoration to repair the “immune system” of the Great Lakes, and to reverse a pattern of decline that threatens to affect drinking water, swimming, fishing, tourism and other benefits derived from the largest body of fresh water in the world. “This report serves as a warning,” said Alfred Beeton, Ph.D., one of the lead authors and former director of the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. “The Great Lakes are deteriorating at a rate unprecedented in their recorded history and are nearing the tipping point of ecosystem-wide breakdown. If we want to restore this resource, it is time to act now.”