Lake Mead-- An invasive species party

I know I have disappeared for about a month.... Sorry, that also implied that I had an extremely busy and eventful month :) which was awesome!!!

Well first of all, in the beginning of Oct.... It was our lab's long awaited Lake Mead trip.... which means we headed to Les Vegas!!! Well yeah for work not for fun.... It was fun too but work was hard.

A little background on Lake Mead.....It is the largest man-made reservoir in the U.S.. It spans across two state, Nevada and Arizona. The water is impounded by the famous Hoover Dam......

Why were we there??? We wanted to collect some quagga mussels to run some survival experiments.... Our question was "Can quagga mussels survive in Lake Tahoe water?".

How did we collect those quagga mussels??? We rented a house boat, yes a HOUSE BOAT (with a water slide at the back) there for 10 days and just pull ponars like there is no tomorrow.

** a little side note. Sorry about the lack of pictures. I did get a new camera but I lost all my Lake Mead picture while I was trying to download them onto my laptop... I am really sad :(, so all photos in this post are generous donation from Dr.MW **




Here is our main crew- minus MW and JU trying to figure out where we should park our Deluxe house boat



I have to say, Lake Mead is an invasive species party! We found Quagga mussels growing on live Asian clams... with New Zealand mudsnail motoring around them..... The foto above is a perfect example of little quagge mussels growing on big quagga mussels




During the trip, it was also my bday...... ( I wonder why I looked so mad in this foto??? ) MW and AC made me a cake!!! I was so happy. We went out to the strip one night (sorry lost all my foto) and I have to say what they did to Vegas is incredible none the least, but how wasteful......all the lights, water and resources................I just can't quite understand.


Anywaz................at the end of this.......................I have to say I love my job...........I am grateful for the opportunity to see the world....................