PELLSTON — The University of Michigan Biological Station will host an open house at its main research and teaching campus along Douglas Lake just south of the Mackinac Bridge from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, July 23.

Guests will be able to explore the historic field station and meet with UMBS researchers who will be available to discuss their areas of expertise.

Families also will have the opportunity to view organisms collected that weekend during the 2023 BioBlitz, a three-day event where scientists and citizens work together to conduct a 72-hour ecological sampling of the Douglas Lake area to log as many species as possible to assess biodiversity and ecosystem health.

For the BioBlitz from Friday, July 21, to Sunday, July 23, UMBS is partnering with the Douglas Lake Improvement Association, researchers at UMBS, the U-M Museum of Zoology and Herbarium, the State of Michigan EGLE and local watershed councils to achieve an overall tally of the plants, animals, fungi and other organisms that call this specific part of northern Michigan home — with a specific focus on aquatic species this year.

We encourage families to search in and around the lake and upload observations to the iNaturalist Project app, which is free.

“We are thrilled to welcome families to one of the nation’s largest and longest continuously operating field stations,” said Dr. Aimée Classen, director of the University of Michigan Biological Station and a professor in the U-M Department of Ecology and Evolutional Biology. “It’s a place of scientific discovery that alters the way you see the world. We look forward to engaging with everyone, including children. Together we can inspire deeper understanding and appreciation of local lake ecosystems and improve public engagement to support conservation.”

Refreshments will be served at the open house, a free, public event at 9133 Biological Rd. in Pellston, located off of Riggsville Road.

Please note that pets are not allowed in the station because of UMBS research and experiments.

Laboratories and cabins are tucked into 10,000 acres along Douglas Lake.

“UMBS is where nature comes alive for hundreds of college students each year. It’s where scientific researchers from around the globe come to study unique species and ecosystems,” Classen said.

Research areas at the Biological Station are wide ranging yet interwoven and share the collective goal of understanding the changing environment of northern Michigan.

For example, scientists track carbon storage and fluxes through successive forest systems and to the atmosphere, monitor mating habits and nesting sites of the endangered Great Lakes Piping Plover, and assess the impacts of dam removal on animal and plant populations in local rivers and wetlands.

More than 10,500 students have passed through the Pellston campus since its establishment in 1909. Courses are open to students and research scientists from U-M and other universities and organizations.

Long-term monitoring and highly specialized research infrastructure allow scientists to generate data and ask questions that could not be answered anywhere else.

The UMBS land has 11 different natural communities — from bogs and forests to meadows and beaches — within which there are 125 different landscape ecosystem types.

“Students and scientists live and work as a community to learn from the place in northern Michigan,” Classen said. “Together, they help forecast how organisms, populations, communities and ecosystems will function in the future under conditions that humans have never seen before.”

For more information about the scientific field station, visit the UMBS website and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.