U Maintains 'Clean' Environment Outpost

Almost everyone seems to 4( I agree these days that ü I thing ought to be done to clean si lup the environment. There's ad I lot of talk about ecology and g I making the air, lakes, and rivers si I "like they used to be." c( The task isn't easy. TQday few places are left where scientists I can lócate an unpolluted I stream or untouched wilderness ■ to find out what "like they lused to be" even means. One of the remaining outposts for I this purpcse is in Northern I Michigan. The research and teaching faI cility is the University's Biological Station, established in 1909. It is one of the oldest, and easily I the largest, fresh-water stations I of its kind in the world. From its beginnmg the facility has devoted ïtself to the study of ecology - the intimate relationI ships between plants and animals and their natural environments. Located near Pellston, 10 I miles south of the Straits of I Mackinac, the station's 9,000 I acres nestle between Douglas I and Burt lakes. A lot has changed there since I 1909, when the U-M Regents appropriated $2,000 for a "Teaching and Research Station in Botany and Zoology" on land I donated the year before by Col. I and Mrs. Charles Bogardus. That first year, 14 students and two professors fearlessly set out from Ann Arbor for the day and-a-half auto trip to the old I abandoned lumber camp. The students and instructors lived in tents and fought continually-with an amazingly virle and persistent crop of black flies. Today, the Biological Station is a modern complex of more I than 100 buildings sprawled over a S0-acre campus on Douglas Lake's South Fishtail Bay. The expressway trip from Ann Arbor now takes only four hours. But while the buildings and roads have changed, the station's purpose has not. As always, its main function is to provide students and research biologists with actual in the-field study to supplement the ecological work they do on the Ann Arbor campus. Since 1909 more than 5,000 students and V V JO researchers have done just ïat. Along the way, almost 1,200 ;ientific papers, including many octoral dissertations, have been enerated at the station by :holars throughout the country. Among the station's notable lumni are two Nobel Prize mreates, Thomas H. Weller and ames D. Watson. Both men received Nobel Prizes in physiolgy and medicine, Dr. Weller i 1954 for his work on the physlogy of parasites, and Dr. atson with others in 1962 for tie discovery of the doublé helix hape of the DNA molecule. The station's director is Prof. Frederick K. Sparrow Jr., inernationally known for his work n fresh-water and marine fungi. Ie emphasizes that the staion's classes stress fundamenals of ecology, the "nitty-gritty lecessary for the training of irofessional environmental scintists." Students are baptized by tota mmersion in fundamental biolo ical studies, with courses last ng from sunrise to sunset. The nformation and training they ;et there can be applied latei o specific environmental prob ems elsewbere. Students often spend 10 to 1 ïours a day on their courses vhich meet once or twice a veek. This intensive approach ;he closed community, and th solation of the station often giv students a lifelong dedication t Diological research. "A student will make a dis covery up there and he'll get on Eire about it," Prof. Sparrow says. "Sometimes this is just what he needs to launch him on a career in the biological scienees." The Biological Station is particularly well located for this kind of training. Lying in the transition zone between conifer ous evergreen forests to thi north and leafy forests to thi south, it contains elements o: both. lts land includes four miles o: shoreline on Douglas Lake, anc two miles on Burt Lake. Be tween the two bodies of watei are rolling, wooded morainei broken by b o g s and oc casional flat plains. The area also encompasses the entin ïeadwaters and course of a mail creek, thus offering an xcellent opportunity for the tudy of stream ecology under undisturbed conditions. The station's wide variety of habitats supports a staggering number of native plants and animáis. The land has more than 1,000 species of flowering plants, 250 kinds of mosses, 600 species of algae, 52 types of mammals, 75 varieties of fish and 150 species of birds. The station is a department of U-M's College of Literature Science, ar.d the Arts. lts forma: instruction runs from the ene of June to mid-August. The prin-ll cipal courses are in botany and II zoology, but the curriculum alsolB ncludes advanced courses in II 'orestry. This year a course inl oceanographic methods will bel added. The oceanographic course willB be offered by the College of En-B gineering's meteorology andl oceanography department. TheBJ easy availability of Lakes Mich-BJ igan, Huron, and Superior makeB the Biological Station a logicalB headquarters for such a course. ■ Students in this course, and inB another d e a 1 i n g with GreatB Lakes limnology, will take'H ■ IMM- I M cruises on the research vessel 'inland Seas. The 114-foot ship is owned and operated by the Great Lakes Research División of the University's Institute of Science and Technology. A second new course, called the Physiological Ecology of Plants, will consider how combined environmental factors such as sunlight, wind, humidity, soil, and temperature can affect the vital processes in plants. Last year, the station offered a similar course dealing with environmental effects on animáis. This summer, six of the 18 [courses offered at Douglas Lake will deal specifically with ecol-B ogy, but all are environmentally I oriented. When these formalB courses end in August, however, I research will continue. Until 1966, the Biological II tion's summertime buildings I made winter research 1 ble. Then a grant f rom the II tional Science Foundation ■ lowed the University to build al modern, all-weather lakesideB laboratory. The 23,000-square-B foot building features hot andB cold well water, lake water, gas,H and compressed air throughout.B Located within a few yards ofB Douglas Lake, it includes a boatB channel connecting its aquarium I room directly to the lake. The future of teaching and re-B search work at the station de-B pends heavily upon keeping theB land and water there in its nat-B ural state. The facility's 9,000 ■ acres should ward off encroach-B ment by man into the terrestrial ■ environment, but the station's I lakes are a different matter. 1 Protecting Douglas Lake, I Iwhere the station's world I jmous aquatic research is done, I Iwould be fairly simple if the I luniversity of Michigan owned I lall the land fronting on it. But I Imore than half of the lake's I Ifrontage is in the hands of I Ivate owners. The life of the I llake lies literally in their hands. I "There will inevitably bel I some changes in the lake unless I I there is strict adherence to state I I anti-pollution laws," Prof. I Irow says. "Fortunately the I I pie around Donólas Lake are I I demanding strict adherence. I I I think they are convinced that the I I studies the University does there I lare of importance to them." I