All Wet | FOUR DECADES LATER, ROBERT JOHNSON '65 IS STILL TENDING CORNELL'S RESEARCH PONDS (AND BATTLING BEAVERS)

fOR SOMEONE WHO MAKES HIS LIVING TOILING IN the muck, Robert Johnson '65 has extraordinarily clean fingernails. Johnson has managed Cornell's research ponds for forty-two years, ever since he graduated from the Ag college with a degree in animal science. "I do come back rather muddy some nights," says Johnson, who helped build nearly half of the ninety-one ponds as an undergrad before becoming their first and only manager.

Located north of the Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport, the man-made ponds are 100 feet square and vary in depth from one to eight feet. They're arranged like the patches of a quilt, with enough grassy space in between to walk single-file. Each spring, Johnson straps on his waterproof boots to help researchers set up their experiments. To create a blank slate for the next project, he restores the natural ecosystems of ponds where research has been completed. This summer, his schedule has been dictated by a furry creature: Every night, beavers build a dam, which constricts the flow of a natural marsh, also used for research. Every day, Johnson takes it down. It's not his ideal solution, but as he laments, "You can't move a beaver in New York State."

For his first twenty years on the job, Johnson spent most of his workday at the ponds, which are overseen by the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Now he splits his time between the ponds and traveling to speak about his own research; his winter months are spent in the greenhouse of Muenscher Lab, lately testing the effectiveness of Acentria ephemerella moth caterpillars as regulators of invasive aquatic plant populations. He's worked on many initiatives to clean up bodies of water in Upstate New York, including Cayuga Lake.

The ponds--peepholes through which researchers can learn about larger aquatic ecosystems--are used by Cornell faculty and students, as well as visiting scientists. Past topics include the territorial behavior of green frogs, the efficacy of aquatic herbicides, and the habits of muskrats tracked via radio collars. This summer, the ponds are dotted with numbered birdhouses, used to observe the nesting habits of tree swallows.Most experiments last two to three years, during which Johnson--who approves the research projects--develops a thorough knowledge of each experiment. "In the beginning, in many cases, I don't know all the specific factors a researcher might be testing for," Johnson says. "But that's the enjoyment of making new discoveries--or watching someone on a wild goose chase."

-- Casey McGloin