We are very grateful for all the support and friendship of our WSU colleagues over the years! Following 4 years as a rotator division director at National Science Foundation, I accepted a new position as deputy director of the new Biosphere Sciences & Engineering division of Carnegie Institution for Science. The new division integrates biology from the molecular to ecological scales, and is being developed in collaboration with Caltech. Also, NASA JPL is nearby and I look forward to deepening connections with colleagues using remote sensing to understand biology at global scales. I am so delighted that postdoc Dr. Ryan McClure will be joining me, and many collaborations with keep me in touch with my WSU friends in coming years!

Wonderful to celebrate with recent PhD grads Dr. Michael Meyer, Dr. Alli Cramer and Dr. Brian Lanouette! 

New papers continue to emerge from our 2019 AGU Chapman Conference on Winter Limnology, many published in the special issue of JGR Biogeosciences that was developed at the conference. A recent one develops the Lake Ice Continuum Concept as a conceptual model for understanding how key aspects of the physical, chemical, and ecological structure and function of lakes vary along a continuum of winter climate conditions mediated by ice and snow cover. It is co-led by first authors who contributed equally – Emily Cavaliere, Isabelle Fournier, Vendy Hazuková, Garrett Rue and Steve Sadro.

A chapter of Michael’s dissertation – a peer-reviewed data paper from our Lake Baikal field seasons – has just been published in L&O Letters! Over 150 variables measured include sewage indicators, such as pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and microplastics, with periphyton, macroinvertebrate, stable isotope, and fatty acid profiles. Public data on these variables in Lake Baikal have been extremely rare and we hope that these data will be useful in future studies and inspire others to share more data and knowledge on this important ecosystem.

We are excited to welcome a new postdoc to our research group! Dr. Ryan McClure is coming from a postdoc at Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies and Virginia Tech. Ryan is an ecosystem ecologist and aquatic biogeochemist. His experience includes working at the forefront of the rapidly evolving field of ecological forecasting, determining drivers of methane emissions in lakes, and understanding the dynamics of aquatic biogeochemistry under shifting oxygen conditions. In addition to his accomplishments in limnological scholarship, he has enjoyed working with lake managers to improve water quality in lakes and reservoirs.

Over 80 people convened online to watch Michael Meyer’s excellent seminar on 9 September 2021 when he successfully defended his dissertation “Effects of spatially and temporally heterogeneous human disturbance on littoral benthic communities in large, deep, oligotrophic lakes.” Michael is starting a new postdoctoral position this fall with the USGS, on a Mendenhall fellowship, based in Madison WI and collaborating with a terrific aquatic science team located throughout the U.S.  We are going to miss Michael tremendously, but we are all so proud and excited to see him to take this next step in his career.

We are looking forward to a virtual reception for the ASLO 2020 awards! It is happening on 1 Dec 2020 at noon ET (9am PT). The Limnology & Oceanography Bulletin also featured a Q&A with the 2020 Awardees, and for those of us who were scheduled to receive the awards at the Summer 2020 meeting (cancelled due to COVID), our talks will be posted on the ASLO YouTube channel. All in all, it makes me feel very appreciated – thanks to ASLO!

Our Russian and American team has published a paper on the Saprolegnia infections that occur on Lake Baikal’s dominant zooplankton, the copepod Epischurella! It’s online early just now, lined up for publication in the hardcopy Limnology & Oceanography soon. First author Ted Ozersky pointed out that it’s the first time he’s had the experience of a project taking so long to complete that the genus name was updated between the first and final draft – from Epischura to Epischurella! (Personally, I have had projects take longer.) One of our team members, Larry Bowman, contributed that revised genus name, so at least we were the first to know when it happened!

Excited to see the first paper from our AGU Chapman conference on winter limnology now published in JGR Biogeosciences! Sapna Sharma led the team to synthesize ideas for future research by integrating in situ and remote sensing observations, physical based models, and experiments. With winter changing so rapidly, and increasing interest from limnologists, we are looking forward to seeing some innovative new research coming out of this continuing work!

This week Eos published our short overview of the AGU Chapman Conference we hosted in October 2019 on Winter Limnology in a Changing World. Attendees came out of the conference with a better understanding of where we are in the science, and the feasibility of future projects that can help sustain research momentum. At least one manuscript is already forthcoming, several more are in progress, and a special issue is underway in JGR Biogeosciences.