BEAVER ISLAND, MI – For decades, scientists have been drawn like magnets to a cluster of remote islands thirty-some miles out into northern Lake Michigan, halfway between Michigan’s Upper and Lower peninsulas.
The islands in the Beaver Island archipelago are a hub for scientific research about Great Lakes water quality, microplastics pollution, wetlands monitoring, and more. Central Michigan University operates a biological research facility on the island, where researchers come from across the Great Lakes to study and train the next generation of environmental scientists.
Beaver Island and its surrounding outer islands provide the best possible living laboratory for researchers to explore in the Great Lakes.
“As far as pristine goes, this is as close as it gets. Pristine doesn’t exist in the entire world anymore because of atmospheric impacts – mercury is everywhere, the poles, you name it. But this place gives us the best that we can expect. So, it’s our yardstick,” said Don Uzarski, CMU biology professor.
“We can use this as what we could expect to restore to. We can’t restore to before European settlement; that ship has sailed. But what we can do is look around at these ecosystems, study those, and try to get to that point.”
Related: Beaver Island is a pristine environmental haven. Will it last?
Uzarski serves as director of both the CMU Institute for Great Lakes Research and the university’s biological station on Beaver Island. About half of the 33 professors in the institute regularly conduct research on Beaver Island, he said.
“Everything from engineering, chemistry, geography, biology, chemistry, also the earth and atmospheric sciences. So, they’re all coming together,” Uzarski said.
Study topics include climate change, invasive species, impacts of PFAS and other chemical pollution, and the meteorological phenomenon of meteotsunamis – large waves driven by disturbances in air pressure, often connected to large thunderstorms and other storm fronts.
“Every component of that ecosystem we are really covering, and we are studying,” Uzarski said. “I don’t think you can name one of our Great Lakes issues that we’re not at least partially working on.”
Researchers even recently enlisted the help of private submarine owners to help with Great Lakes water quality and fishery habitat studies.
The third week of July saw a host of researchers, graduate students, and undergraduates on Beaver Island to participate in Great Lakes wetlands monitoring and more. Some were doing federal grant-funded research and data collection on Garden Island, an outer island to the north of Beaver Island. Others were enrolled in a summer research program that drew students not just from CMU but also other universities.
Katarina Gonzalez, 21, an undergraduate biology student at Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, Tennessee, spent her summer at the CMU facility to study naturally occurring aerobic microorganisms that degrade hydrocarbons, chief components of petroleum and natural gas, found in Lake Michigan sediment around Beaver Island. She was able to grow more colonies of those microorganisms from samples collected in the island’s harbor than those from more open water areas.
“The harbor itself is where the ferry comes through most often and that’s really where all the boats are. So theoretically that’s where they would grow more naturally, compared to like in the middle of Lake Michigan, just from the natural boat traffic,” Gonzalez said.
She was among the students who gathered to present their scientific findings as part of their summer semester at the CMU island campus. They spread out across the campus lawn during an open house on July 18.
Jonathan “Jack” Gensler, 19, a microbiology student at Ohio Wesleyan University, talked about his research into the carnivorous purple pitcher plant that grows in bogs and fens on Beaver Island. He studied microbes that help the plants turn bugs into food.
“The microbes that performed this process haven’t been detected in pitcher plants before this project. So, we were able to find them present. We wanted to see if their presence was correlated with enzyme activity, and if it was more enzymes pumping more nitrogen in the system, we thought we’d see more bacteria using that nitrogen. So far yet we haven’t seen any correlations,” Gensler said.
Related: The rarest wildflower in Michigan thrives on Beaver Island
Beaver Island residents mingled among the researchers and university administrators who gathered for the event.
Six-year-old Will Kirby of Chicago learned how the scientists and students collect water samples at a demonstration station during the open house. He was on Beaver Island with his siblings to visit their grandmother Sue Snow, a year-round island resident.
Snow said it’s “awesome” to have the scientists from CMU and other colleges and universities on Beaver Island all the time. “I’d say they bring a great addition to the island,” she said.
Educational opportunities at the CMU facility on Beaver Island also aren’t limited to high school and college students. Members of the public can audit courses, something many state and federal scientists do for required professional development in their careers.
“All of our classes that we offer here, even the core classes that count towards your science major, we also open them up as workshops to continuing ed or for the general public that want to get knowledge and be part of these classes,” Uzarski said. “Anybody can do it.”
More details about available classes at the CMU Biological Station on Beaver Island can be found here.
Read more Beaver Island coverage here.
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