Lake Chelan provides the perfect setting for the 27th WALPA conference
With nearly 90 people attending, the Applied Limnology conference (WALPA’s 27th annual) was a great venue for exchanging ideas and learning about the work different groups are doing across the state. Conference attendees at Campbell’s Resort in Chelan included representatives from tribal staff, universities (students, teachers and researchers), lake associations, local citizens, government, and others interested in Washington and Idaho lake issues. Thanks to all the sponsors, exhibitors, volunteers and speakers who, along with the participants, made the event a great success!
Rock snot in the intermountain Northwest: an invasive or a native nuisance?
By Mary K. Coyle and Frank M. Wilhelm
Resembling masses of wet toilet paper, nuisance mats of Didymosphenia geminata – a microscopic attached diatom – can smother river beds, grab the attention of passers-by, and infuriate anglers by snagging on gear. In some areas, “Didymo” produces a thick, whitish-brown mat composed primarily of excess stalk material that feels like wet cotton and suffocates the river bed. The exact reasons behind the formation of these mats is not known and is a focus of much research. Important macroinvertebrates such as stoneflies, mayflies and caddisflies, the preferred prey of trout species, are displaced by the dense mats, and replaced by smaller midges and worms that can easily live in the mat. Because mats tend to occur in cold, clear mountain streams, many recreationists see them as unnatural, ugly, and invasive.
What is a bryozoan?
by Gene Williams
If you’ve ever seen a light brown, gelatinous blob in your lake, you may have been looking at a bryozoan. Bryozoans form colonies, like coral, that consist of thousands of microscopic animals called “zooids” spread around the surface of a hard, jelly-like mass. Colonies start out small in the spring, but may grow to more than a foot in diameter.
