This month, the CFOC Nonprofit Spotlight features The SUNY Oneonta Biological Field Station 

Poised on the shore of Otsego Lake, the SUNY Oneonta Biological Field Station (BFS), focuses on education, research, and community engagement. Serving as a living classroom for nationally recognized lake management and biology graduate programs, BFS’ team of scientists guide students and summer interns in environmental field research and data generation to help understand important ecosystems.

A key focus for BFS is Otsego Lake, a true treasure in Otsego County. BFS has studied Otsego Lake for decades, and the data collected has been used to form management plans and provide insights to those who make decisions about policies and regulations in the watershed. Currently, BFS is part of a major community effort to formulate an updated lake management plan referred to as the “9E” (nine element) Plan that is being led by the Otsego Watershed Supervisory Committee (a committee comprised of representatives from the municipalities that border the lake – Springfield, Middlefield, Otsego, and Cooperstown). Our activities are made possible, in large part, owing to the support of a diversity of local community organizations including grants from the Otsego Lake Watershed Sustainability Fund at the Community Foundation of Otsego County (CFOC).

In the summer of 2024, a grant from the Lake Fund at CFOC enabled BFS to hire two college summer interns, Elizabeth DuBois and Braeden Victory (a Cooperstown High School graduate who now attends the University of Maine), who focused on research directly related to the 9E Plan. Their research topics included taking water quality measurements, and tracking algae populations as well as the invasive zebra and quagga mussels. A key finding from Braeden’s work was that quagga mussels, first observed in 2020, have almost completely displaced zebra mussels which were first observed here in 2007. 

There are other BFS activities focused on the lake including, but not limited to, the use of a continuous lake monitoring buoy to obtain a variety of water quality data, ice patterns, study of stream flow during normal conditions and during storm events, maintenance of navigation buoys, and research on fisheries, their parasites, plankton (tiny organisms in the open water), and aquatic plants. The Lake Fund at CFOC also supported the applet subscription in 2024 that allows the BFS to continuously stream data from the buoy to their website to make it available to the public. 

Support from our local community is vital to continue these activities. BFS encourages the public to visit during its Open House (4-7 pm July 31st). 

For more information, contact Dr. Florian Reyda, Director and Rufus J. Thayer Otsego Lake Research Chair, at florian.reyda@oneonta.edu or see https://suny.oneonta.edu/biological-field-station

Content provided by BFS.