Using a single-celled alga, a team of UW-Madison researchers have discovered key factors in predicting how and at what levels copper and cadmium harm the shoreline environment of the Great Lakes, and what protective measures coastal organisms adopt in response. That’s allowed regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency to refine tools to protect Great Lakes coastal regions from the metals.

Sea Grant staff across the Great Lakes are working to ensure that aquatic invasive species aren’t spread by fishing tournament activities.

Preparing communities for coastal storms, enhancing the water quality of Green Bay, protecting wetland habitats – does all this sound like a job for a super human? Well, Julia Noordyk is up to the challenge. She begins work as Wisconsin Sea Grant’s water quality and coastal communities specialist out of the Green Bay Field Office on March 1.

Scientists, resource managers, community members and students will examine issues involving the key Twin Ports waterway when the Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve holds its third annual St. Louis River Estuary Summit Feb. 26-27 at the University of Wisconsin-Superior.

For the first time in its 12-year history, the Lake Sturgeon Bowl has a team in the winner column that isn’t Marshfield High School. The often-second-place finishers, Spring Valley High School, now take the crown and earn the chance to compete in the National Ocean Sciences Bowl.

Telling the story of the largest Great Lake is an ambitious task. The Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute does it justice with a seven-part series of podcasts about Lake Superior that brings listeners underwater to shipwrecks in the Apostle Islands and features the calls of waterfowl in the St. Louis River Estuary.

Wisconsin’s annual sturgeon spearing season on the Lake Winnebago system gets underway on Saturday, Feb. 9. Listen to audiobook excerpts about the annual rite or purchase the book to keep the season alive all year round.

A Q&A chat with the newest member of UW Sea Grant’s Advisory Council–David Garman, the Dean of UW-Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences.

A branch chief of the U.S. Geological Survey in La Crosse, Wis., credits his experience as a former Ph.D. student supported by Wisconsin Sea Grant with preparing him to be an independent researcher and in helping him disseminate his findings to natural resource managers.

Prof. Bud Harris and Larry Wawronowicz discuss the rewards and challenges of chairing Wisconsin Sea Grant’s Advisory Council.