ALE Lab Master’s student Sarah Menzl & PhD student Joel Betts presented at our annual Grad Student Research Symposium last month. Their talks attempted to tease out impacts of understudied agricultural stressors—water withdrawals & tile drainage—on stream fish & their habitat in southern Michigan.
At the 2026 Michigan AFS/TWS meeting ALE members Sarah Menzl and Maggie Haite were recognized for their commitment to diversity. Sarah also presented preliminary findings of the impact of water withdrawals on fish habitat in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Congrats!
Our lab recently worked to develop a web application for the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Framework (GLAHF), to allow users to explore Aquatic Ecological Units (AEUs), an ecosystem classification map of the Laurentian Great Lakes (Riseng et al. 2018). Check it out here!
hub.glahf.org/pages/applic...
MSU Fisheries and Wildlife had the privilege to host @karenjmurchie.bsky.social for a seminar and several meetings last Friday, including a meeting with the ALE Lab. Thanks Karen for sharing your important research and outreach on suckers in the Great Lakes with our department!
We are excited to begin a new project with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Trout Unlimited, and others to study effects of water withdrawals on Michigan streams!
The ALE lab's Justin Miller wrote a piece highlighting his research "Promoting Resilience in Michigan’s Rivers: A Case of Structured Decision-Making Informed by Temperature and Habitat Models in the Au Sable" in this Fall's Michigan Trout Unlimited Magazine (p. 12). Check out the PDF posted here!
Check out this new paper from our lab, led by Dr. Hao Yu. We predict future turnover and range shifts due to climate change for 55 widely distributed stream fishes with differing thermal preferences. Most cold/cool water and some small-bodied warm-water species were projected to lose habitat.
Congratulations to Dr. Kyle Brumm, the newest PhD from our lab, on the successful defense of his dissertation today! Kyle presented his multifaceted research: Explaining stream fish responses to changing environmental conditions: Using a functional biogeography approach across large spatial extents.
Joel Betts, one of our PhD students, had the opportunity to provide some insight on a fish die-off in a local park pond last week!
Special issue of the journal Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Mgmt celebrating the impactful career of Dr. William (Bill) Taylor from Michigan State Univ. LOTS of great lessons in here... @amfisheriessoc.bsky.social @infante-lab.bsky.social scholarlypublishingcollective.org/msup/aehm/is...
We invite you to contribute to this new special issue in Frontiers in Environmental Science: Ecological Risk and Management of Nonindigenous Aquatic Species.
In a recent study, we compiled a trait database representing more than 120 species to investigate responses of fishes to environmental conditions in the Upper Mississippi and Yangtze Rivers. Our insights may be used to promote the effectiveness of inter-basin partnerships in large rivers globally.