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Monday 8am - 4:30pm Tuesday 8am - 4:30pm Wednesday 8am - 4:30pm Thursday 8am - 4:30pm Friday 8am - 4:30pm

University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS)

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University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS)

Dedicated to field-based education and research since 1909.
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06/17/2026

As a service project, UMBS students in the General Ecology Lab course helped Resident Biologist Adam Schubel in the Gorge on Monday, June 15. They put pipes under a beaver dam to keep creek water flowing, cleared hiking trails, and installed safety posts on a boardwalk. Thank you for giving back to our community!

06/16/2026

Bird lovers, join us Wednesday evening for the Hann Lecture in Ornithology: “Trait-based Insights into the Dynamics of Biodiversity” featuring Dr. Marta Jarzyna from Ohio State University. Discover how bird traits reveal seasonal shifts that species counts alone can miss.

The public is welcome to attend the free lecture along Douglas Lake on June 17 at 7 p.m., followed by an ice cream social.

Event Details: https://myumi.ch/2jMEn

Full Summer Lecture Series schedule: https://myumi.ch/79zyr

06/15/2026

Dr. Mary Jamieson, instructor of the Conservation Biology in Practice course at the University of Michigan Biological Station, took this photo of a Kirtland’s warbler on Monday, June 8. The class took a field trip to Hartwick Pines State Park in the Grayling area. The management of jack pine forests helped rescue the famously recovering bird species from extinction.

Students in the Conservation Biology in Practice class used binoculars to spot Kirtland’s warblers, one of the rarest migratory songbirds in North America, under the guidance of Dr. Dave Ewert, pictured on the left in a baseball cap in the second photo. Ewert is a senior conservation scientist with the American Bird Conservancy.

Hartwick Pines State Park is one of the last remaining old growth forests, conserved by being protected from logging during the 20th century. Many of the pines in the park are over 200 years old and preserved by the state of Michigan.

06/12/2026

Marilyn Gates, the daughter of former University of Michigan Biological Station director David M. Gates, used her 800 mm camera lens to capture an unusual moment on Douglas Lake on June 7. A newly hatched goose rode on the back of its surrogate parent: a loon! Read the fascinating story of the blended family: https://myumi.ch/5wmDw

06/11/2026

The mayflies understood the assignment: hatch, swarm, steal the spotlight. This week at the University of Michigan Biological Station, Douglas Lake’s tiniest seasonal celebrities made their grand entrance for nature’s short-lived show.

06/09/2026

WEDNESDAY: Discover the power of natural history collections to answer questions about our changing world. Dr. Alison Davis Rabosky explores how biodiversity evolves across space and time, with a particular focus on snakes and color evolution. In this talk, she will delve into how the University of Michigan’s biodiversity collections allow scientists to ask questions that cannot be answered any other way, from tracking environmental change and emerging disease to reconstructing the evolution of life itself.

Join us June 10 at 7 p.m. for this free public lecture along Douglas Lake, followed by an ice cream social.

Event Details: https://myumi.ch/Axk27

Full Summer Lecture Series schedule: https://myumi.ch/79zyr

06/07/2026

A week of field station life is never just one thing. It's research on the Ocqueoc River, sailing after class, square dancing with friends, and learning the art of quillwork in Ethnobotany. Around here, science and community go hand in hand.

06/02/2026

WEDNESDAY: Examine an environmental and public health crisis of epic proportions in the French Caribbean islands with the University of Michigan’s Dr. Bénédicte Boisseron, who bridges Global Black Studies and the Environmental Humanities. From 1972 to 1993, a highly toxic pesticide was sprayed on weevil-infested banana plantations in the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, despite known health risks. The resulting health impact on the population has come to symbolize how the colonial is often inextricable from the ecological. But what about the weevil? This talk at the U-M Biological Station responds to environmental scholar Malcolm Ferdinand’s call to also look at the weevil in this dramatic story.

Join us June 3 at 7 p.m. for this free public lecture along Douglas Lake, followed by an ice cream social.

Event Details: https://myumi.ch/G7WrJ

Full Summer Lecture Series schedule: https://myumi.ch/79zyr

05/29/2026

New researcher enlists AI to reveal insights hidden in our historic field station’s ‘dark data.’ Meet Dr. Anshuman Swain from the University of Michigan who believes more than a century of researchers who have come and gone still have more to teach us. Plus, the secret life of pine cones. Read the May newsletter: https://myumi.ch/QMNWq

05/28/2026

Cute Culprit: Director Aimée Classen caught a porcupine in the act of trying to eat the Biotron underground soil science facility at the University of Michigan Biological Station.

Address

9133 Biological Road
Pellston, MI
49769

Opening Hours

Monday	8am - 4:30pm
Tuesday	8am - 4:30pm
Wednesday	8am - 4:30pm
Thursday	8am - 4:30pm
Friday	8am - 4:30pm

Website

http://www.lsa.umich.edu/umbs/

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