University of Minnesota Extension at UMD is helping produce a free online event to raise awareness about the winter life of the little creatures in trout streams that make up the backbone of the food chain for fish.

“Bugs Below Zero: Engaging Citizens in Winter Research” is set for 6:45 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 11.

A student inspects insects collected during winter months from a Minnesota trout stream as part of the Bugs Below Zero project. (Sarah Karnas / Bell Museum)

Biologist Amy Schrank, an expert on trout streams stationed at Sea Grant’s University of Minnesota Duluth headquarters, will be joined by Rebecca Swenson, associate professor at the university’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, and by Alyssa Anderson, associate professor of biology at Southwest Minnesota State University.

Bugs Below Zero is a Minnesota Sea Grant project designed to draw attention to the importance of winter stream food webs and how citizens can be involved in community science to contribute to stream conservation and winter ecology research.

Some insects, including stoneflies, mayflies, caddisflies and non-biting midges, are active in the winter months. These bugs can survive below-zero temperatures and can often be found on snowbanks. They are also a vitally important food for trout. Researchers are examining how seasonal changes may alter these insects’ life cycles and trout populations.

The biggest concern? If the climate continues to warm, as Minnesota experienced in December, insects that emerge in winter and depend on cold will disappear, and so will the trout that depend on them.

The University of Minnesota Bugs Below Zero Team has been discovering the life-cycle dynamics of non-biting midges and their importance to trout for more than a decade. Now, the research group is looking for volunteers to help with monitoring efforts and to expand the scope of this research program.

“The first goal of the program is to get people excited and educated about bugs in winter, and bugs in streams,” said Swenson. “But then we want people to get involved and go out and help collect data.”

When the snow finally flies, the University’s Bugs Below Zero team wants citizen scientists — K-12 and community college science teachers and their students, angling groups and anyone interested — to join them in a community science project that expands the understanding of winter active aquatic insects.

“Trout fishermen have really been active in this so far,” Swenson told the News Tribune. “But it could be anyone who likes to be outside in wi

Yes, mayflies and other insects are alive and active in winter and play an important role in the ecology of a trout stream. You can help uncover more about that role by participating in Bugs Below Zero. Some insects, including stoneflies, mayflies, caddisflies and non-biting midges, are active in the winter months. These bugs can survive below-zero temperatures and can often be found on snowbanks. They are also a vitally important food for trout. Researchers are examining how seasonal changes may alter these insects’ life cycles and trout populations. (Courtesy of the University of Minnesota)

nter: hikers or cross-country skiers or whatever. You don’t have to be a fisherman to get into this.”

Participants identify and submit information and photographs of aquatic insects on the snow, often near stream banks and then upload their findings on an app. Your help can grow the understanding of how the unique Minnesota climate reveals valuable insights about interactions between weather, water, insects and food webs for researchers across the globe.

Schrank, the Extension program leader, is a fish biologist with more than 15 years of experience teaching and conducting research in Great Lakes aquatic ecosystems. Her background includes work on trout movement, stream and lake fish ecology, the effects of dam removal on fishes and how invasive plants impact fish communities in Great Lakes coastal wetlands.

For more information on Bugs Below Zero, go to bugsbelowzero.com.

How to register

Go to the University of Minnesota Extension Minnesota Master Naturalist Meetings and Events webpage at westmetromasternaturalists.weebly.com/meetings.html to sign up. A free, in-person version of the event will be held Feb. 3 at 5 p.m. in the Joseph J. Casby Observatory, 1553 Stagecoach Trail S. in Afton.

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Authorities have identified the man shot and killed early Monday morning at a New Year’s Eve gathering in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood as Abdifatah Abdillahi, 23, of Roseville.

Shortly after 1:30 a.m., a 911 caller said they “wanted a group of people removed” from a gathering at a home in the 1600 block of Van Buren Avenue, according to a news release from the police department. While officers were on their way to the scene, more 911 calls came in saying that shots were fired at the gathering. One caller said they were with someone who had been injured and were taking the victim to the hospital. That caller then hung up.

Officers who arrived at the home didn’t find any victims there but were told a man with gunshot wounds was at United Hospital. That man died at the downtown St. Paul hospital shortly afterward, marking the city’s first homicide of 2024 and the earliest of any new year in recent memory.

No arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.

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ROCHESTER, Minn. — A former Mayo Clinic doctor accused of poisoning his wife in August will now be facing a first-degree murder charge in the case.

Connor Bowman. (Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

Connor Bowman, 30, was charged by a grand jury for first-degree premeditated murder on Thursday. In Minnesota, first-degree murder can only be charged by a grand jury. The Olmsted County Attorney’s Office said in a news release that if he is convicted of first-degree murder, Connor Bowman “shall be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of release.”

Bowman is also facing a second-degree murder with intent-not premeditated charge in Olmsted County in connection with the death of his wife, Betty Bowman. Connor Bowman is accused of using colchicine, a drug used to treat gout, to poison her last August.

The indictment also listed several witnesses examined before the grand jury, including a detective with the Rochester Police Department, four Mayo Clinic doctors and a nurse for Mayo Clinic.

Connor Bowman’s next court date is slated for Jan. 16.

According to the criminal complaint:

Betty Bowman died on Aug. 20 after she went to the emergency room days earlier complaining of diarrhea and dehydration.

RPD was notified on Aug. 21, 2023, by the Southeast Minnesota Medical Examiner’s Office of a suspicious death. Betty Bowman was scheduled to be cremated, but that was halted after the examiner’s office learned of possible suspicious circumstances.

A woman called the examiner’s office and said that Betty and her husband were having marital issues and were talking about filing for divorce due to infidelity.

She was admitted to a hospital with severe gastrointestinal distress and dehydration on Aug. 16, and her condition rapidly deteriorated.

Her symptoms were similar to those of food poisoning, but she did not respond to standard treatments and continued to deteriorate while at the hospital. She experienced cardiac issues, fluid in her lungs, and eventually organ failure. She was taken into surgery after it was discovered that part of her colon was dead tissue.

Connor Bowman suggested to doctors while his wife was hospitalized that she was suffering from hematophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, a rare autoimmune disease in which white blood cells attack organs.

He told multiple people she died from this disease despite tests of his wife coming back inconclusive for it, according to court documents. He also included it in her obituary.

He told the medical examiner that she should be cremated immediately and argued that her death was natural. He also attempted to cancel the autopsy and asked investigators if the toxicology analysis would be more thorough than usual.

Connor Bowman worked in poison control in Kansas.

According to the complaint, the couple had separate bank accounts due to debt and he stood to receive $500,000 in life insurance following her death.

A witness told law enforcement that Betty Bowman said she had been drinking with Connor on Aug. 15 and she was feeling sick the next morning. She told her friend that she believed the drink, a large smoothie, had caused the illness, according to court documents.

A detective found that Connor Bowman had looked at his wife’s medical information while she was in the hospital.

Court documents say that a laptop from the University of Kansas that was owned by Connor Bowman was searched by the university. The search found internet searches for colchicine, a drug used to treat gout. There were also several internet searches related to hiding information from police on the laptop, as well as a search for where to obtain sodium nitrate, a drug used to restrict oxygen in the bloodstream, according to court documents.

Connor Bowman also searched for and found the lethal dosage of colchicine for his wife’s weight, according to the report. Police also found that he had purchased colchicine online.

A toxicology report listed colchicine as a substance in Betty Bowman’s system. She did not suffer from any ailments that would require the drug.

Connor Bowman was arrested on Oct. 20. He has been held at the Adult Detention Center since his arrest.

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DULUTH, Minn. — A potential merger between two large health care systems has been called off.

In a joint news release Friday, Duluth-based Essentia Health and Marshfield, Wis.-based Marshfield Clinic Health System said they were ending merger talks. The two had signed a memorandum of understanding in October 2022 as they mulled a potential merger and then entered a merger agreement in July 2023.

In a separate statement, Essentia said Marshfield’s financial situation “was the primary factor in our decision to end discussions.”

“To be clear, Essentia’s finances are strong, and it is imperative we maintain that stability so we can continue investing in and enhancing care for our patients,” Essentia said.

“Essentia Health and MCHS have engaged in meaningful discussion over the last two years about how our organizations could combine our unique strengths. We have decided that a combination at this time is not the right path forward for our respective organizations, colleagues and patients,” Essentia and Marshfield said in their joint release. “We will continue to seek opportunities for collaboration as two mission-driven, integrated health systems dedicated to sustainable rural health care. Our organizations have great respect for one another, and we each remain committed to strengthening the health of our communities as we deliver high-quality, compassionate patient care.”

This is the second time since 2019 that Marshfield has been in failed merger talks, according to the Marshfield News Herald. In December 2019, Marshfield Clinic Health System and Gundersen Health System of La Crosse, Wis., mutually decided to call off merger talks, the newspaper reported.

Last month, the newspaper also reported a new Marshfield Clinic Health System hospital in Wisconsin Rapids was still not open, six months after it was originally set to see patients. A spokesperson cited “the current challenges in rural health care” as it reviewed potential opening date timelines.

Had the two systems merged, Essentia Health CEO Dr. David Herman was set to serve as the CEO of a new parent company with more than 3,800 providers and 150 care sites, 25 of which are hospitals, across Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Chris Rubesch, an Essentia nurse and president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, said the union viewed the merger failing as a win for patients, workers and the region.

“For years, workers and patients have watched as corporate health care executives closed and consolidated critical services, taking jobs and care out of our communities. Thanks to the efforts of MNA nurses and patients, the tide is beginning to turn,” Rubesch said in a news release. “The defeat of this planned merger is a win against the further corporatization of our health care system. MNA nurses will continue to organize, speak out, and take action to put patient needs before corporate greed in our hospitals.”

In October, St. Luke’s — Duluth’s other major health care system — signed a definitive agreement to merge with Wausau, Wis.-based Aspirus Health.

The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, which recently gained authority in state law to consider whether such mergers were in the public interest, was reviewing both sets of mergers.

Essentia said regulatory reviews did not factor into the decision to end talks.

Minnesota Attorney General’s Office spokesperson Brian Evans said the Essentia-Marshfield merger review had been ongoing before Friday’s announcement.

“The Attorney General’s Office has been conducting a review of the proposed merger, based on both existing authority under nonprofit and antitrust law and new authority under Minnesota’s new healthcare entities transaction law,” Evans said. “That review was ongoing, but the parties have now decided not to pursue the merger.”

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