Lake Erie

The final project we worked on in this class was to compare two sites in Lake Erie: one rather calm (near Middle Bass Island), and one much more exposed (near Rattlesnake Island). We learned all sorts of techniques during this project, like using a trawl (right), measuring density of zooplankton, using an Eckman dredge, measuring light penetration etc.

We did a lot of discussion about invasive species, like our friends the zebra and quagga mussels (left), and the resulting ecological effects. We measured the amount of dissolved oxygen to find out how eutrophic the lake is and discussed the causes of this phenomenon.