University of Notre Dame Environmental Research Center

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University of Notre Dame Environmental Research Center

UNDERC furthers research and education in environmental studies at The University of Notre Dame by f

09/03/2026

This weekend, Notre Dame’s football team will play a game in Wisconsin for the first time since the 1960s. While long-time competitors on the field, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Wisconsin-Madison share a rich and collaborative research history. Throughout the years, Notre Dame Research has maintained a continuous presence in Wisconsin at the University of Notre Dame Environmental Research Center (UNDERC).

Now a world-class destination for environmental research and education, UNDERC sits on Notre Dame’s 7,500-acre Land O’Lakes property that spans Michigan and Wisconsin. Over its history, the site has hosted Congregation of Holy Cross retreats and even the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. But in some of its earliest days, it hosted Edward Birge, a pioneering American limnologist and former President of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who conducted research on 600 lakes in Wisconsin — some of which were located at Land O’Lakes. He called the Notre Dame site “the finest and most unique piece of scientific property in the north, for experimental purposes.”

In 1951, Professor Arthur Hasler of the University of Wisconsin-Madison began using the property to lead the first whole-lake ecosystem study of its kind. Recognizing that lakes were too complex to be studied piecemeal in a laboratory setting, Hasler divided a lake in half and named the new pair of lakes “Peter” and “Paul.” Hasler’s initial research on these lakes was expanded when Steve Carpenter — former Notre Dame professor and eventual director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Limnology — demonstrated how alterations to one level of aquatic food webs had cascading effects on other levels.

The property is also an ideal spot for students to engage in immersive research and education experiences. Renowned Notre Dame entomologist George Craig started bringing students to UNDERC in the 1970s.

Ahead of this Saturday’s kickoff, take a look at some archival photos of UNDERC, and read more about the UW-Notre Dame research history: https://underc.nd.edu/about/history/

08/17/2026

Happy Mouse Monday! 🐭 Caroline, an alum of our Track 1 program, came back for a second summer to study the caching and pilfering behavior of the mice of the Northwoods under the mentorship of Dr. Michael Cramer. She is uncovering how soil moisture affects the likelihood of caching (storing food underground) and pilfering (uncovering stored food). Since climate change not only leads to increased temperatures, but altered precipitation patterns, the results of Caroline’s study can help predict how these behaviors may change in the future due to climate changes. Due to the important roles mice serve as a food source and seed dispersers, these behavioral changes in caching and pilfering have important implications for the rest of the ecosystem.

08/13/2026

🪱🌳Track 2 Student Spotlight! 🌳🪱This summer, Kamyla, an undergrad from the University of Puerto Rico- Humacao, worked with Notre Dame graduate student, Libbie Ring, to investigate how invasive earthworms are impacting the forests at UNDERC. Specifically, Kamyla was interested in uncovering how these invasive species are disrupting the mutualistic relationship between sugar maple trees and mycorrhizal fungi. This relationship allows the trees to uptake more water and nutrients, so disrupting this relationship has important implications for forest and ecosystem health.

08/10/2026

Check out what a group of our stellar undergrads were up to this summer! 🦎

08/05/2026

Congratulations to everyone who presented today at the UNDERC Symposium! 🎉 We are very proud of all the research accomplished by this cohort of undergrads!

08/04/2026

Happy Tree Tuesday! 🌳 Today, we spotlight Sheccid Gutierrez, a recent Saint Mary’s College graduate. Alongside University of Notre Dame graduate student Nick Beronio, she is investigating how a tree’s decay status affects external bark temperature. Heart rot is a fungal disease that decays the central heartwood of trees and is usually undetectable without the use of sonic tomography, a time-intensive imaging technique. Other researchers have explored using bark temperature, a much faster method, to assess tree health, but with little success. These measurements have not accounted for other factors that influence bark temperature, such as air temperature, humidity, light levels, and tree size. Now, Sheccid and Nick are incorporating these factors to improve the accuracy of this new technique, ultimately allowing researchers to quickly detect the presence and severity of heart rot.

07/27/2026

Reese, a rising junior at the University of Notre Dame, returned for her second summer at UNDERC to study microplastics in lakes. After investigating the amount of microplastics in the water column of over 15 lakes last summer as a part of our Track 1 aquatic research group, she is expanding this research to examine microplastic abundance in lake sediments. Specifically, she will be sampling sediments in nearshore and open-water areas to understand where microplastics accumulate, shedding light on how they enter, move through, and persist within lakes. Reese’s research will also help identify locations where aquatic organisms may be more likely to ingest microplastics, which is known to negatively affect the health of individuals, and ultimately, aquatic communities.

07/23/2026

Meet Jacob Patterson, one of our Track 2 students, who under the mentorship of Notre Dame graduate student Chathuranga Senevirathne, is studying how wood density impacts how much methane trees emit. Since methane is produced by microorganisms living inside trees, they hypothesize that differences in wood density will influence how well methane can diffuse from where it is produced to the atmosphere. While forests have been traditionally seen as carbon sinks, the growing evidence that trees produce and emit greenhouse gases, such as methane, means that the role that forests serve in the global carbon budget is still unclear. Jacob and Chathuranga’s research this summer will add to a growing body of research urging climate scientists to reexamine how they categorize forests to predict current and future net carbon emissions.

07/14/2026

Our first Track 2 Student Spotlight of 2026! 🌊 Adison is studying how lake metabolism (aka the amount of respiration vs photosynthesis happening in a lake) differs across lakes of different volumes and nutrient levels. While both factors are known to influence lake metabolism, it’s still unclear how these two factors work together to shape a lake’s overall productivity. However, quantifying a lake’s metabolism is no easy feat as it requires lab and field measurements of chlorophyll, phosphate, dissolved organic carbon, dissolved oxygen and dissolved CO2. After weeks of field and lab work, Adison’s research will help us better understand how lakes cycle carbon and nutrients, providing valuable insights into freshwater ecosystems and their health.

07/01/2026

June at UNDERC! 🌳🌊🦎☁️🌻🛶 Our Track 1 students learned all about aquatic ecology, vertebrate ecology, forest ecology, and NEON. We are excited for them to apply what they’ve learned on their group projects! Stay tuned to learn more about their research and the other projects happening at UNDERC this summer!

Address

736 Flanner Hall
Notre Dame, IN
46556

Telephone

+15746317186

Website

http://underc.nd.edu/

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