2019 Surveys Conducted on Lake Guardian

In 2019, the R/V Lake Guardian supported five Lake Erie CSMI surveys. This page presents summaries of the science and participating partners:

On this page:

• Lower Food Web Surveys
• Benthos Survey 
• Lower Food Web Contaminants Survey
• ​Harmful Algal Blooms/Hypoxia Survey​

A total of 22 total stations were sampled during day and night over 3-4 days. The following samples were collected and analyzed at all sites or a subset of sites:

Multiple technical instruments were deployed to measure the following optical parameters for validating water quality and HABs remote sensing models:

 

As part of the 2019 Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative (CSMI), teams of Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) partners aboard the EPA research vessel Lake Guardian from July 15-23 monitored and mapped the distribution of bottom-dwelling organisms, known as benthos, to better understand the health of Lake Erie’s lower food web.

 

Benthic organisms are critical components of Lake Erie’s food web. They provide food for native fish such as yellow perch, white perch, burbot, white bass and lake whitefish in addition to non-native species including round goby, rainbow smelt and alewife. Benthic organisms include amphipods, which are small crustaceans, mollusks, annelid worms, and insect larvae.

 

Collecting data on the composition and health of the benthic community is essential to understanding how energy and nutrients are cycled throughout the lake, and whether changes to those cycles are occurring. Benthic organisms are also important indicators of ecosystem health, as many benthic species are sensitive to pollution.

On the 2019 CSMI benthos survey, scientists collected underwater video footage and “grabbed” samples of the lake bottom sediment via a Ponar grab. Videos and samples allow the research team to estimate the presence and abundance of bottom-dwelling species, with a special emphasis on the distribution of invasive Quagga mussels. They compared 2019 data to results from past surveys to understand how the Lake Erie benthic community has changed over time and determine if Quagga mussel abundance, growth and health in Lake Erie are changing at different rates than in the other Great Lakes.

The teams conducting this research are made up of several GLRI partners:

•     Environmental Protection Agency
•     National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
•     Buffalo State College
•     Wright State University
•     Cornell University
•     Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education
•     Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research

---

Lower Food Web Contaminants Survey

Contaminants in the aquatic ecosystem can bioaccumulate through the food chain and potentially become present at higher concentrations in organisms  at the top of the food chain. To better understand contaminant cycling in the Great Lakes open water food web, researchers from Clarkson University, EPA, USGS, NOAA GLERL, SUNY-Fredonia, and SUNY-Oswego assessed the biomagnification of legacy contaminants and chemicals of emerging concern in the lower food web in support of Lake Erie CSMI. Sampling was conducted at the Western Basin and Eastern Basin Great Lakes Fish Monitoring and Surveillance Program (GLFMSP) sites in Lake Erie in June 2019. This CSMI survey sampled water, sediment, phytoplankton, zooplankton, and benthos for contaminant analyses, thus targeting the major components of the Lake Erie lower food web.

Results from this survey supplement EPA’s long-term GLFMSP. Annual monitoring through the GLFMSP collects top predator fish from fixed sampling sites in each Great Lake. These fish are aged then analyzed for legacy and emerging contaminants in whole fish.

---

Harmful Algal Blooms/Hypoxia Survey

The scientific objective of the survey is to examine how harmful algal blooms (HABS) and bottom hypoxia (lack of oxygen) are driving change in the structure, function and dynamics of Lake Erie’s food webs. The factors will be considered both separately and combined.

This research will examine how the presence of HABs and hypoxia can affect the quantity and quality of prey available to the ecosystem’s top predators (walleye and yellow perch). It will help us understand how toxins produced by HABs, such as microcystin, are distributed throughout the water column, as well as within the food web.

HABs/hypoxia cruises were conducted July and August 2019 using the RV Lake Explorer II (operated by the U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development) and the CCGS Limnos (operated by Environment and Climate Change Canada and Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada).

1. HABs
2. hypoxic zones
3. areas of combined HABs and hypoxia

Here are the questions this research is designed to answer:

1. How does the composition of microbes, phytoplankton, zooplankton and fish differ among areas inside and outside of HABs, hypoxic zones and areas of combined HABs and hypoxia?
2. How does the movement, behavior and distribution of higher consumers (zooplankton and fish) vary in the presence of one or both stressors? For example:
   1. Are these organisms “squeezed” between surface-dominated HABs and bottom hypoxia?
   2. Is diel vertical migration, or migration that happens between day and night, disrupted?
   3. Do higher consumers actively use HABs as a refuge from predation, or actively avoid them?)
3. Do production and energy transfer between primary producers (microbes, algae), secondary consumers (zooplankton), and tertiary consumers (planktivorous fish) differ among areas?
4. Does the quality of higher consumers decrease in the presence of one or both stressors?
5. What role does food web transfer play in the accumulation of cyanotoxins (microcystin) in the edible tissue of fish?

• U.S. EPA
• Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant
• Ohio State University
• Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada