By Morgan Greene
A group of scientists walked out on to frozen Lake Michigan to do something they’ve done time and again throughout the Great Lakes: collect water.
They drilled down past the shoreline of a park in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where it was quiet enough to hear the ice pop as sunlight warmed the frozen surface.
But back on land, everything started to freeze. Pens, people’s hands. Most concerning, the water samples.
The work was part of the first coordinated sampling across all five Great Lakes to figure out what’s happening in one of the world’s largest freshwater systems in winter — something scientists know surprisingly little about.
The first attempt wasn’t without challenges, but researchers see the work as an overdue and necessary step toward understanding a fast-changing season in which ice could become increasingly rare.
With sampling of more than 30 sites from Lake Superior to Lake Erie wrapped up, some Chicago researchers will now play a key role in making sense of the lakes’ tiniest members — who pose some of the biggest mysteries.
Microbes — including bacteria and viruses — are generally smaller than the naked eye can see. Yet they wield significant power, especially as the Great Lakes respond to climate change.
“Maybe we projected that as humans, we sort of hunker down in winter, and stay indoors and watch Netflix. So maybe all the biology is hibernating,” said Maureen Coleman, associate professor of geosciences at the University of Chicago. “But clearly it’s not.”
Coleman began the first long-term study of Great Lakes microorganisms in 2012, leading to the discovery of hundreds of new species.
Her lab will analyze samples from the Great Lakes sites to get a better picture of what the minuscule sentinels are up to. Analysis will likely take a few months once all the samples arrive, Coleman said, and then scientists will work together to make sense of the results.
“It’s a great endpoint because we’re going to have data,” Coleman said. “It’s also a great starting point for a lot of future work.”