Sarah Steffy (Taylor University) and Sam Powell (Covenant College) worked in partnership with the Conservation Resource Alliance and the Greenwood Foundation to survey stream macroinvertebrate communities in the Boardman and Little Pigeon Rivers. They surveyed 13 field sites, counted ~11,000 Didymosphenia geminata frustules, identified 3354 macroinvertebrate specimens and isolated eDNA from river sediments. Grace Cooper (Whitworth University), worked to uncover connections between Jack Pine forest succession and post-fire community recovery. Grace also extracted DNA from soils to determine whether fungal community composition is linked to stand age and understory community structure.

These students are part of Au Sable’s Summer Undergraduate Preparation in Environmental Research (SUPER) program. This comprehensive 13-week program includes guided research instruction and 16 college credits of field coursework at the Au Sable Great Lakes campus in northern Michigan.