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Global study details microplastics contamination in lakes and reservoirs
LAWRENCE — A University of Kansas research professor contributed to new work published in the journal Nature that reveals concentrations of plastic found in freshwater environments are higher than those found in so-called “garbage patches” in the ocean. Ted Harris and recent KU graduate Rebecca Kessler contributed samples from nearby lakes and reservoirs. “Places like Clinton Lake are relatively low in microplastics because — while there are many animals and trees — there aren’t a lot of humans, relative to somewhere like Lake Tahoe where people are living all around it,” Harris said.
Barbara Kerr receives Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to Iceland
LAWRENCE — A University of Kansas professor of counseling psychology has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to travel to Iceland this fall to study creative communities. Barbara Kerr’s research will contribute to her capstone work, a book on the psychology of creativity that summarizes 15 years of research.
Full stories below.
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Contact: Jon Niccum, KU News Service, 785-864-7633, [email protected]
Global study details microplastics contamination in lakes and reservoirs
LAWRENCE — Around 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year. But that is not the only water source where plastic represents a significant intrusion.
“We found microplastics in every lake we sampled,” said Ted Harris, associate research professor for the Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research at the University of Kansas.
“Some of these lakes you think of as clear, beautiful vacation spots. But we discovered such places to be perfect examples of the link between plastics and humans.”
Harris is one of 79 researchers belonging to the international Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON), which examines processes and phenomena occurring in freshwater environments. Their new paper, titled “Plastic debris in lakes and reservoirs,” reveals that concentrations of plastic found in freshwater environments are actually higher than those found in so-called “garbage patches” in the ocean. The article is published in Nature.
For his role, Harris teamed with Rebecca Kessler, his former student and recent KU graduate, to test two Kansas lakes (Clinton and Perry) and the Cross Reservoir at the KU Field Station.
“That entailed us going out, tolling a net with tiny little holes in it, dragging it for about two minutes, then collecting those samples of microplastics and sending them off to (the lead researchers),” Kessler said.
The research project was designed and coordinated by the Inland Water Ecology and Management research group of the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy (headed by Barbara Leoni and Veronica Nava). The team sampled surface waters of 38 lakes and reservoirs, distributed across gradients of geographical position and limnological attributes. It detected plastic debris in all studied lakes and reservoirs.
“This paper essentially shows the more humans, the more plastics,” Harris said. “Places like Clinton Lake are relatively low in microplastics because — while there are many animals and trees — there aren’t a lot of humans, relative to somewhere like Lake Tahoe where people are living all around it. Some of these lakes are seemingly pristine and beautiful, yet that’s where the microplastics come from.”
Harris said that many of the plastics are from something as outwardly innocuous as T-shirts.
“The simple act of people getting in swimming and having clothing that has microplastic fibers in it leads to microplastics getting everywhere,” he said.
The GLEON study cites two types of water bodies studied that are particularly vulnerable to plastic contamination: lakes and reservoirs in densely populated and urbanized areas; and those with elevated deposition areas, long water retention times and high levels of anthropogenic influence.
“When we started the study, I didn’t know a lot about microplastics versus large plastics,” Harris said.
“When this paper says ‘concentrations as much or worse than the garbage patch,’ you always think of the big bottles and stuff, but you’re not thinking of all that smaller stuff. You don’t see a huge garbage patch in Lake Tahoe, yet it’s one of the most impacted lakes when it comes to microplastics. Those are plastics you can’t really see with the naked eye, and then you get underneath a scope at 40,000x, and you see these little jagged pieces and other particles that are the same size as algae or even smaller.”
Part of Harris and Kessler’s enthusiasm for taking part in this project was to highlight a region of the U.S. that is often overlooked.
“In this study, there’s one dot in the middle of the country, and that’s our sample,” he said. “In Iowa, Missouri and Colorado, there’s this huge swath of area that has water bodies, but we often don’t get them into those massive global studies. So it was really important for me to put Kansas on the map to see and contextualize what these differences are in our lakes.”
Harris has worked at KU since 2013, where his research focuses on aquatic ecology. Kessler graduated KU in 2022 with a degree in ecology, evolutionary & organismal biology.
“The biggest takeaway from our study is that microplastics can be found in all lakes,” Kessler said. “Obviously, there are different concentrations. But they are literally everywhere. And the biggest contributing factor to these microplastics is human interaction with the lakes.”
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Barbara Kerr receives Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to Iceland
LAWRENCE — Barbara Kerr, University of Kansas Williamson Family Distinguished Professor of Counseling Psychology, has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to travel to Iceland to study creative communities.
Co-funded by the National Science Foundation Arctic Scholars program, the Fulbright Fellowship will allow Kerr to spend the 2023 fall semester in Iceland exploring how communities composed of creative people differ from other organizations. Icelanders have a high participation rate in creative industries, and the country has more patents, copyrights and art sold per capita than much larger nations.
“We want to see if creative communities in Iceland have some part to play in national innovation,” Kerr said.
Fulbright U.S. Scholar Awards are prestigious and competitive fellowships that provide unique opportunities for scholars to teach and conduct research abroad, as well as forge partnerships with international institutions. Kerr is one of 800 U.S. citizens who will teach or conduct research abroad for the 2023-2024 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program.
Kerr’s research will contribute to her capstone work, a book on the psychology of creativity that summarizes 15 years of research at KU’s Counseling Laboratory for the Exploration of Optimal States in the School of Education & Human Sciences.
For years, Kerr has studied creative individuals but recently began exploring creative communities. With a group of doctoral students, she observed and interviewed people in Kansas at makerspaces, art collectives and writers’ workshops.
Because so much of Iceland’s creativity takes place in community, Kerr said it’s important to study not just the individuals but the organizations in which the creativity and innovation occurs.
Kerr has conducted research in Iceland several times. In 2013, Kerr and her daughter, a photographer, documented their experience interviewing creative people in Iceland. She has since returned three times with doctoral students to study why Iceland is so creative. This summer Kerr is leading a study abroad group to Iceland where they will study creative communities.
“In Iceland, I discovered that creativity takes place not only in the context of community but also in the context of gender equality and tolerance, social democracy and high economic equality,” Kerr said. “From that point on, I have studied how variables of gender, privilege and opportunity interact with individual variables to predict the development of creative talent.”
While in Iceland, Kerr will collaborate with Hanna Olafsdottir, a professor at the University of Iceland who teaches courses in art education, art and nature, and art therapy. Kerr will guest lecture in Olafsdottir’s classes and visit creative groups with her. Through the National Science Foundation Artic Scholars program, Kerr will also work with scientists and scholars in the fields of geology, natural history and culture of Arctic regions.
The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to build lasting connections between the people of the U.S. and the people of other countries. Since its establishment in 1946, the Fulbright Program has given more than 400,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.
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