Latest Isle Royale Stories

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Through their dietary and excretory habits, moose help transfer "significant" amounts of nitrogen from aquatic ecosystems to terrestrial ones, a research project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) has discovered. While land-based vegetation provides some sustenance for moose (Alces alces), it is low in sodium, forcing the creatures to consume aquatic macrophytes (large plants found in lakes, ponds, and wetlands)....

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com Researchers from Michigan Technological University studying the wolf population at Isle Royale National Park were bewildered as to why there was a significant decline in the numbers of wolves on the northwest island on Lake Superior during their 2012 Winter Study -- the population went from 16 to 9 in just one year. After scratching their heads for months over the disappearances, the team received word in May that could explain at least some of the...

Five Major Parks In or Near Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin Highlighted; Significant and Growing Impact on Beaches, Wildlife, Tourism Revenue and Jobs Detailed. CHICAGO, July 13, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Five major Great Lakes national parks are already feeling the impact of climate change in the forms of rising temperatures, decreased winter ice, eroding shorelines, spreading disease, and a crowding out of key wildlife and plant life, according to a major new...

It's seen as a sign of getting old, but scientists have discovered that arthritis is not just a human problem as a study lasting 50 years reveals how moose suffer from an identical form of the condition. The research, published in Ecology Letters, also casts new light on how malnutrition early in life can lead to the disorder in both moose and humans.The study, which began in 1958, was carried out on Isle Royale, a wilderness island National Park in lake superior, with only one large...

Moose eat plants; wolves kill moose. What difference does this classic predator-prey interaction make to biodiversity?A large and unexpected one, say wildlife biologists from Michigan Technological University. Joseph Bump, Rolf Peterson and John Vucetich report in the November 2009 issue of the journal Ecology that the carcasses of moose killed by wolves at Isle Royale National Park enrich the soil in "hot spots" of forest fertility around the kills, causing rapid microbial and...

Moose in Minnesota are likely to become more rare with the broader introduction of climate change, researchers said Monday.Last month, experts issued a special advisory that found the moose population at risk of becoming less prevalent in the US.The August report from the Moose Advisory Committee noted that more research was needed to determine why Minnesota's moose population is on the decline, and what measures could be taken to preserve them.According to the Associated Press, Maine holds...

Scientists say they've found extreme inbreeding of an isolated wolf population at a U.S. island national park has resulted in genetically deformed bones. Michigan Technological University researchers say they've collected the first scientific evidence that inbreeding caused the genetic deterioration of the bones of the wolves at Isle Royale National Park in northern Lake Superior. Rolf Peterson and John Vucetich of Michigan Tech and their colleagues -- Jannikke Raikkonen of the Swedish...

Nearly thirty gray wolves living on an island chain in northwestern Lake Superior have backbone malformations as a result of genetic inbreeding, presenting yet another hurdle for the wolves' long-term survival, wildlife experts say.Although only confirmed recently, the problem has seemingly been in existence or decades in the tiny, isolated wolf packs in Isle Royale National Park in Michigan.The abnormalities are also found in some domestic dogs, and can cause pain, partial paralysis and...

U.S. researchers said the bones of wolves can provide scientists with a better picture of environmental change than tree rings can. "Since the widespread combustion of fossil fuels, we have put a human fingerprint on atmospheric carbon dioxide," Joseph Bump, a forest science researcher at Michigan Technological University, said in a release. "That fingerprint shows up in trees, and it shows up in animals that eat trees, but it shows up with the least variation in the top predators." Bump and...

By Mary Ann Grossmann, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn. Jul. 6--For Minnesotans, "up north" is not a specific place. It's an idea that lives in our hearts and imaginations. "Up north" could be as close as the Chisago chain of lakes or as distant as Lake of the Woods. For many of us, though, "up north" means Lake Superior, its North Shore and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Today, we celebrate this giant inland sea and the cities that surround it with a roundup of worthy books that...