On a typical fall day in Ohio, anglers line the banks of rivers like the Vermilion and the Conneaut, looking for that next great catch. Their main target is steelhead trout, a salmon relative native to the Pacific Northwest that has been introduced into Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New York rivers to extend the recreational fishing season into the fall and early winter.

Dr. John Farver and Dr. Jeffrey Miner of Bowling Green State University are studying these fish, specifically their otoliths, a small bone that acts as a balancing organ and helps with hearing. Based on chemical elements incorporated into the otolith as the fish grows, the researchers are able to determine with better than 90% accuracy (100% accuracy for Ohio-stocked fish) the state hatchery in which the fish was raised, how much time the fish spent in the river once stocked, and potentially where in the lake it spent most of its life before returning to a stream to breed.

Stone Laboratory continues to build its reputation as an educational facility and as a research base, offering classes, workshops, and research space to 250 students and scientists from across the Great Lakes each year.

However, Ohio State’s Island Campus on Lake Erie also acts as Ohio Sea Grant’s outreach facility, where policy makers, journalists, and the public can learn about the lake’s role in the region’s economic and environmental health.

New materials like nanoparticles open up exciting opportunities for manufacturing companies, from construction supplies to medical innovations. But they also raise environmental concerns when they could enter rivers, streams, or the Great Lakes after their initial purpose is completed.

Dr. John Lenhart and Dr. Harold Walker of Ohio State University’s Department of Civil, Environmental, & Geodetic Engineering, along with graduate student Xuan Li, recently completed a project examining the fate of silver nanoparticles, often used in commercial products because silver acts as an effective antimicrobial agent. When those particles enter natural waters, such as rivers or a Great Lake, the silver can either aggregate (or clump together) and settle into the sediment, where it would affect bottom-dwelling organisms; or it can stay suspended in the water column, where it would slowly dissolve and release toxic silver ions into the water.

Phosphorus is almost always at the forefront of concerns about the health of Lake Erie and its tributaries. Watershed managers never stop searching for ways to reduce phosphorus input into the ecosystem, but they also need to be able to monitor those nutrient levels easily and cost-effectively to report on their progress and address worsening conditions as soon as possible.

It’s a beautiful fall day on the Toussaint River, just south of the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge on the Lake Erie shore. Along both riverbanks, farm fields attest to western Ohio’s agricultural roots, and on the water, the passengers of a metal boat, clad in heavy rubber waders, boots, and gloves, seem to be setting up for a mad science experiment.

The 5th graders watch intently as two of their fellow students pull in the trawling net. This is the moment they had been waiting for, the part of today’s trip they had begun asking about two hours earlier. The students crowd around the metal basin holding their catch, touching the slippery fish, yelling when one of the fish jumps, and taking photos with their phones.

It’s pretty difficult for an indoor class to match this level of excitement.

“This is one of those Stone Lab experiences that I can’t replicate in the classroom,” says their teacher, Robin Sneed.

Lake Erie has seen some difficult times. Considered the poster child of water pollution in the 1960s, with one tributary so polluted it burned, many thought of it as dead. But Lake Erie recovered, thanks to comprehensive phosphorus restrictions and inter-agency collaborations, and turned into an impressive success story of what ecosystem recovery efforts can accomplish in just a few years. The lake became a major economic player once again, producing more fish than the other four Great Lakes combined, supporting thousands of jobs, and showing nay-sayers just how resilient it can be.

But over the last ten years, Lake Erie has had to do battle once again. And it’s a battle many fear could seriously challenge its resiliency.

Computer modeling has become an important part of everyday life, from creating weather forecasts to deciding where to put a new traffic light. And, as with all models, the accuracy of their predictions depends on being able to feed them accurate information. This includes the initial information used to create the model, as well as any adjustments as measuring and modeling technologies improve over time.

Dr. Ethan Kubatko, from Ohio State University’s Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering & Geodetic Sciences, is working on such an adjustment to the Lake Erie Operational Forecast System (LEOFS) model, which visualizes the flow of water throughout Lake Erie. When Kubatko joined OSU in 2008, he came across a report of how the model had been performing and noticed a pattern to the data.

Climate change is not only likely to affect our weather, our water levels, and our health, but also the variety of birds we see in our backyards and city parks. Changing environmental conditions will affect where these birds live, raise their offspring, and spend their winters, and wildlife managers across the Great Lakes region and beyond will have to consider these potential changes when deciding on the best way to manage the wooded areas in their care.