Now that we are into June, all of our field work is well underway. Scroll down to see various aspects of field work in the Roth lab!
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Aaron Sullivan, a master's student in the Roth lab will be out at field sites through fall looking at the diets of native fish in ponds infested with red swamp crayfish. He hopes to catch plenty of fish and find lots of crayfish in their diets! Pictured above, you can see Aaron with undergraduate technicians Adam and Larissa performing a gastric lavage on a fish to puke up its stomach contents (left) and looking at the sample in a jar to be analyzed at a future date (right).
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Throughout the summer, field crews will be out at Great Lakes fishing tournaments each weekend to collect fish stomach donations. Stomach contents will be analyzed back in the lab at MSU to determine changes in Great Lakes fish diets over the years. Pictured above are research technician Makenzie (left) and post-doc Elvita (right) running a donation table at a tournament (center).
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Crews will be out all summer and fall working at ponds invaded by red swamp crayfish to continue to monitor them for any changes and work to eradicate the invasive species. Monitoring efforts include trapping and macroinvertebrate surveys. Pictured above undergraduate technician Ellie and research technician Mackenzie (left) check traps (center) and undergraduate technician Zach holds a captured red swamp crayfish.

Roth lab members on the invasive red swamp crayfish project aided Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) in treating infested ponds with pesticides this past week. We’ve been working to treat ponds twice a year, once in late spring and once in fall, to kill any red swamp crayfish in the ponds. There are always trade-offs with any invasive species management decisions. Although our pesticide applications aid in suppression and control of the invasive species, we also see non-target impacts to any aquatic species in the ponds. As with any response strategy, we are constantly adapting our decisions based on data we collect, and pesticide treatments are no different. We’ve been adapting our application method to best suit the shallow macrophyte ponds we work with. This week we tested two new methods of application: a floating carboy (pictured above) and a wand (video below). We will continue to trap and collect data on ponds next year to see how effective these application methods were!

Author: Sarah Walker
Photos and Videos Courtesy of Mackenzie Thompson and Colin Assenmacher

​Several members of the Roth lab attended the 154th Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society in Honolulu, Hawai’i this past week. They were excited to share our lab’s current research and management through their presentations and poster. You can find their abstracts here. Of course, while in Hawaii they had to check out the amazing views. A trip with Roth lab members can also never be complete without seeing some fish. Amazing job Mackenzie Thompson, Dr. Elvita Eglite, Dr. William Ota, and Dr. Brian Roth!

Author: Sarah Walker
Photos courtesy of Mackenzie Thompson​

I've finally developed a website for my lab.   It was about as easy as I thought it would be.   Took some time and organization, but that's about it.    I hope folks look at the website, particularly as my lab undergoes a busy summer season.   I will update this blog throughout the summer, providing some details about what we're doing and finding.   Stay tuned!