Bug Camp: U-M Biological Station celebrates 100 years of investigating nature By Glen Young A centennial celebration is always an auspicious anniversary. This is certainly true on the shores of Douglass Lake in northern Emmet County where the University of Michigan Biological Station recently celebrated 100 years of scientific inquiry. To mark the milestone, station director Knute Nadlehoffer and two colleagues edited “The Changing Environment of Northern Michigan.” Subtitled “A Century of Science and Nature at the University of Michigan Biological Station,” editors Nadlehoffer, Alan Hogg, and Brian Hazlett have collected the work of myriad experts in various fields of study who have worked at the biological station. There are chapters on the developing forests, the rivers and lake, as well as entries on the flora and fauna found in northern Michigan. “About five years before our centennial we started planning centennial events and we decided that one useful outcome would be a book,” Nadlehoffer says. He and his collaborators recognized that the work done at the place sometimes known by insiders as “bug camp,” had been written about before. “There have been thousands of peer reviewed journal papers written about the work done at the biological station, but there had never been a volume that explained to non-scientists what we do.”
A GOOD READ A primary goal of the work was to make the reading accessible to those with limited scientific backgrounds. “In the back of our minds it was to be a kind of field guide,” says co-editor Hogg. In addition, while he admits each chapter could be turned into a complete field guide of its own. “The book is like 21 field trips you would take with people who know something about their subject matter,” Nadlehoffer says. So what have scientists and other observers learned over a century of research on Douglass Lake and the surrounding vicinity? “Because human life-spans are relatively short, it’s hard to sense change, so people who are new to the north often don’t appreciate the landscape that is recovering from a major disturbance,” Nadlehoffer says, referring to the clear cutting that was common at the end of the 19th century. “There’s really nothing pristine about it,” he says of the northern environment, even in remote Emmet County, where development has been less aggressive than in more urban areas. Even so, the development of the lakeshore is another interest of the scientists. “The biological station is an incredibly valuable resource for studying the interface of land and water, says Nadlehoffer. “You can see what happens when you don’t have cottage development versus the places that have been developed,” Hogg adds.
10,000 ACRES The biological station sits on approximately 10,000 acres in northeast Emmet County, between Petoskey and Cheboygan. Each year students from the University of Michigan and elsewhere gather to do field work and research. The work is conducted in the woods, along Douglass Lake, and in the nearby Maple River. The biological station also owns more than 3,000 acres on Sugar Island just outside Sault Ste Marie. In mid-summer, the camp is home to more than 250 people, representing every group from undergraduate students through post-doctoral fellows and professors, as well as visiting faculty from a variety of other educational institutions. On a typical day recently, Guy Meadows, professor of engineering at the University of Michigan, was working along the shore with his team of researchers on their “flying fish,” a robotically controlled airplane with a wingspan of approximately eight feet that serves as a weather buoy when it lands on water. “The goal is to build an ocean monitoring buoy that can persist a long time without human intervention,” Meadows says. The plane, with monitoring equipment on board, is solar powered, and can withstand two cloudy days, Meadows says. “The goal is for the plane to absorb enough energy in the daytime to operate at night.” On this day, under dark clouds, the plane took off quickly, droned overhead, then splashed into the choppy waters 200 yards off shore. Dubbed a “robotic pelican,” Meadows says the group wants the plane to “autonomously land, then like a pelican, pop up and autonomously fly.” The researchers, who have been working on the project for more than two years, have obtained clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration so the plane can fly in “watch circles,” on Douglass Lake as well as Grand Traverse Bay.
LECTURE SERIES Across the narrow gravel road from Meadows and his group, Dr. Scott Heron from Ferris State University, and his assistant Matt Pierle were conducting a class in ethno botany in one of the camp’s rustic classroom buildings. Their students worked on constructing small containers out of birch bark and sweet grass, as well as using a variety of plants to create natural dyes. “Our students learn to sustainably interact with the landscape,” Heron says. “They learn field skills as well as cultural skills.” Throughout the summer, the biological station hosts a free lecture series that is open to the public. This year’s topics range from “Parasites: A User’s Guide,” to “How the Baltimore Oriole Helped Lead Us Astray.” The University of Michigan Biological Station is located at 9133 Biological Rd, Pellston, MI. A full list of events and contact information can be found at www.lsa.umich.edu/umbs/
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