4 August 2007: A week at Itasca State Park

Many of us from the LaPara lab spent last week at Itasca State Park, investigating the lakes there as part of our NSF-funded project on Ecological Stoichiometry and Biodiversity. Itasca was beautiful as always, although the number of loons seemed greater than ever before. There is little to share from the trip, except for the pictures -- which exceptional!

• Thad, Ali, and Kara working on Lake Josephine
• Thad, Ali, and Kara on the trail
• Lake Arco
• Thad, Ali, and Kara on Lake Arco
• West Twin Lake
• Another picture of West Twin Lake
• Lake Ozawindib
• Jim and Lochlin Cotner motoring around on Lake Ozawindib
• Elk Lake
• Jim Cotner on Mary Lake

3 July 2007: Another Paper is Published!

The first paper from Sudeshna's Ph.D dissertation has been published in the ISME Journal. This publication is the new journal of the International Society for Microbial Ecology, so it is expected to be a high-impact journal.

The effects of subtherapeutic antibiotic use in farm animals on the proliferation and persistence of antibiotic resistance among soil bacteria

Sudeshna Ghosh and Timothy M LaPara

ISME J 1: 191-203; advance online publication, May 24, 2007; doi:10.1038/ismej.2007.31

27 June 2007: Lab Fishing Day!

History: I invented "lab fishing day" in 2003, which essentially was an excuse to skip work for a day and to have fun as a research group. We spent the first Lab Fishing Day on the Mississippi River, desperately trying to catch a few fish. We didn't catch much, but we had fun nonetheless. The next year, I was the only one who fished, but we still had a nice picnic lunch. In 2005, no one (including me) wanted to fish, so we all went out to lunch instead. Last year, the event was cancelled out of apathy.

This year I decided to re-start lab fishing day, but this time we decided to leave campus and to spend the day on the lower St. Croix River, also known as Lake St. Croix. I arrived at around 6 am so that I could catch a few fish (note to the non-anglers: fish bite better in the early morning and late evening). I caught quite a few, including four smallmouth bass in the 4-lb range (here is poor picture of one -- forgive me, I was alone at the time); I also caught a smaller one (though still exceeding the minimum size limit) that I kept for Sudeshna to eat (she loves to eat fish).

Around 9 am, the rest of the lab arrived (Sudeshna, Ali, Kara, and Alina). We spent about another hour ot two fishing, mostly without success (actually, only me, Sudeshna and Alina attempted to fish). After that, we headed down the river where we parked the boat, swam a little and ate lunch. After lunch, I forced everyone to have their picture taken with the fish.

After lunch, we explored the lower St. Croix River, where we observed beautiful houses, downtown Stillwater, a bald eagle and very nice boats. But mostly, we relaxed and drove the boat around at very high speeds.

Other pictures from our trip:

• Alina relaxes while sitting in the boat.
• Ali relaxed too.
• There were plenty of waterfowl.
• We took one picture simply to make Kara look even shorter than she actually is.
• Kara driving the boat.
• Some colorful rocks in the water.
• Tim carries cooler from boat to shore back to the boat because we can't decide where to eat lunch.

19 June 2007: LaPara Lab Tries to Canoe in the Wind

As part of our project on Ecological Stoichiometry and Bacterial Diversity, we embarked on our mission to collect lake water from four small lakes in the Twin Cities metropolitan region (Lake Johanna, Lake Josephine, Lake Owasso, and Turtle Lake). This is normally a simple mission, but today's 20-30 mph winds made our work a particularly difficult challenge. We persevered, even managing to stop for a pasty along the way.

Pictures from our adventure:

• Starting our day on Lake Johanna
• The boss does all of the heavy lifting (not really)
• Trying to stay afloat on Lake Josephine
• Stopping for a quick break from all of the hard work
• Kara and Tim and simply hanging out on Lake Owasso
• Rough water on Turtle Lake