The Starry Stonewort Collaborative was funded from 2017 – 2021 and has now reached the end of its grant funding and is no longer active. We sincerely thank everyone for their support and involvement. We hope that the many efforts to control starry stonewort across the Great Lakes basin and beyond will continue. The resource and information sections of this website will be kept online for your use, as is (they will not be updated) until October, 2022. Information and help about invasive species of all kinds can be found at the Finger Lakes PRISM website: www.fingerlakesinvasives.org
What is SSW?
Learn about starry stonewort, an invasive aquatic species threatening the Great Lakes basin.
Our Library
Reports, presentations, training materials, and links to information about starry stonewort in the basin.
News
After four years of working to promote the research of starry stonewort, spread awareness, distribute resources, and bring like-minded people together, we regrettably announce that the Starry Stonewort Collaborative is coming to the end of its grant funding and will be wrapping up in September.
There are many people to thank outside of the Finger Lakes Institute that made the Collaborative a success. These include our Expert Panel and Collaborators from all across the Great Lakes basin representing researchers, resource managers and government agencies. These folks helped guide the Collaborative and are conducting much of the ongoing research that helps us all learn how to control (and someday eradicate) starry stonewort.
Many thanks as well to the ever growing “community” of citizen scientists! Through your rake tosses, we’ve collected important data and plotted a number of starry stonewort locations that were previously unrecorded. Your efforts have also continued to raise awareness for the need to control this invader, so keep up the good work with rake tosses and reporting every season!
Finally, thank you to the Environmental Protection Agency's Great Lakes Restoration Initiative for providing the funding that made this all possible.
As we move through this summer, we will continue with our planned activities and will make the following resources available for as long as possible after September:
The Starry Stonewort Collaborative Website (www.starrystonewort.org)
The Finger Lakes PRISM Website (www.fingerlakesinvasives.org)
A folder with numerous starry stonewort documents (tinyurl.com/SSWdocuments)
The Starry Stonewort Collaborative YouTube Channel (www.youtube.com/channel/UCaBY5u3A_pG6YI0uVqO8p0g/featured)
Thank you for all your support and involvement – this was truly a collaborative program!
-The Starry Stonewort Collaborative
Don't forget to do some rake tosses tomorrow for our Aquatic Invasive Species Blitz! It can be anywhere/anytime that you like, just go out and see what’s in the water! Make sure you report your findings so we can see how many surveys were done during this special, one day effort.
If you missed this morning's webinar with Integrated Lake Management's Keith Gray, it can now be found on our YouTube channel! He discussed Diver Assisted Suction Harvesting, starry stonewort, and recent harvesting in Keuka Lake.
You can watch the webinar here:
youtu.be/HojhZzJ1Z0M
Additionally, we were able to meet with Keith and his team in person while they conducted their harvesting and see the process for ourselves. You can view some of the pictures of the harvesting below!
On August 21st, Minnesota and Wisconsin will be running their annual invasive species sister events, Starry Trek and Snapshot Day, respectively. At sites across the two states, participants are educated about invasive species, trained on how to conduct rake tosses, and then sent out to nearby priority waterbodies to see what they can find. These are great programs that train hundreds of volunteers in a single day! You can learn more about them and register to attend with the links below:
Starry Trek: www.maisrc.umn.edu/ais-detectors/starrytrek
Snapshot Day: wateractionvolunteers.org/event-page/aquatic-invasive-species-snapshot-day-2021/
In conjunction with Starry Trek and Aquatic Invasive Species Snapshot Day, we encourage those of you partaking in our Starry Stonewort Survey program or the Finger Lakes PRISM Macrophyte Survey to go out and do some rake tosses as part of an Aquatic Invasive Species Blitz. It can be anywhere and anytime during August 21st that you like, just go out and find see what’s in the water near you!
Bring a friend and explain why it’s so important that we all keep fighting invasive species! Make sure you report your findings as you normally would so we can see how many surveys were done during this special, one day effort.
This is your chance to help raise awareness and participate in an AIS program spanning the entire Great Lakes basin!
Starry Trek: a statewide search for starry stonewort
Starry Trek returns this August, as a new crew of volunteers will set out to explore new lakes, seek out new AIS, and to boldly go where no volunteer has gone before (ok, maybe not that last one). On ...Join us in just under a week for our final webinar of the year! On August 17th at 10am, Keith Gray from Integreated Lake Management, Inc. (ILM) will present on his organizations experience with Diver Assisted Suction Harvesting (DASH) and starry stonewort.
Additionally, after Keith's presentation we'll announce the winners for our giveaway of two copies of A North American Laurentian Great Lakes Region Water Resource and Lake Manager’s Guide to Understanding Exotic Invasive Nitellopsis obtusa.
Preregister to attend the webinar here: hws.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYrfuqvqj8iGtQwKtvGHe33K8QYVM6t79Xs
And sign up for the giveaway here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScHyakzX8OepFYdPyhUYrr-HPXLaACs1UWuxhvDnwthtsmGig/viewform?usp=s...
Thanks to the generosity of William Scott Brown, we will be giving away two copies of his book: A North American Laurentian Great Lakes Region Water Resource and Lake Manager’s Guide to Understanding Exotic Invasive Nitellopsis obtusa!
These copies of this valuable, comprehensive resource have been donated by Mr. Brown, a researcher and strong advocate for controlling starry stonewort in the state of Michigan and beyond.
You can enter to receive a copy here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScHyakzX8OepFYdPyhUYrr-HPXLaACs1UWuxhvDnwthtsmGig/viewform?usp=s...
The drawing for the winners will be held at the end of our final webinar of the summer, on August 17th.
We hope to see you there!
On Sunday, we had the pleasure of working with the Finger Lakes PRISM to give a training session for the Master Naturalist Program. Through preserved samples and time out on the water, participants learned how to identify numerous of the region's aquatic plant species, including priority invasive species. We had a great time and hope they enjoyed things as much as we did!
In case you missed yesterday's webinar with Dr. Douglas Pullman from the Aquest Corporation, the recording can now be found on our YouTube channel!
Watch it here: youtu.be/5NXwu6JtsdM
In just a few days, on July 14th at 10:00am, we're hosting the third entry in our 2021 webinar series, with Dr. Douglas Pullman from the Aquest Corporation. Dr. Pullman is a limnologist and the president of the Aquest Corp., which has been consulting on lake management for 30 years.
His topic will be: Researching and applying control methods for starry stonewort.
Preregister to attend using the link below!
All underwater photography on starrystonewort.org captured by Scott Brown