Our lab works collaboratively with other researchers and their students on multifaceted problems in large lake ecosystems. We have had a leading role in several coordinated projects - studies of Lake Erie, development of Great Lakes basinwide indicators of environmental conditions and the assessment of coastal wetlands, carbon dynamics and food web structure in Alberta waterbodies. Graduate student opportunities are available with each of the projects.

Our lab’s lake-based research integrates environmental toxicology environmental conditions using focal organisms such as burrowing mayflies, midges and amphipods. We contrast relative roles of endogenous effects (dispersal, maternal investment, aggregation, substrate selection) vs. exogenous factors (food, temperature, oxygen, sediment-bound pollutants, etc.) in explaining mayfly growth and survival. This work has evolved into the development of sediment bioassays for mayflies and midges, and studies examining toxicokinetics, genotoxic and teratogenic effects. We have also studied the possible implications of contaminant transfer by emerging insects to terrestrial systems and insect-feeding birds.

Our research team studies of wetlands in the Alberta oil-sands region, comparing successional processes of zoobenthic communities developing in natural and constructed wetlands as well effects of oil sands mining process water on community development. Our research focus is on bioassessment and wetland reclamation. As our knowledge of these systems has grown, so have the opportunities to see our findings applied to the construction of full-scale systems We are part of multidisciplinary teams tracking succession and ecological processes in constructed wetlands. Suncor Energy’s Wapisiw Lookout marsh (12 ha; 2010) and Syncrude Canada’s Sandhill Fen (52 ha; 2012) are the first reclaimed aquatic systems to be built in the postmining landscape.

Other current research includes

• developing novel assessment strategies and sampling designs to determine impacts on and recovery from industrial and mining development of natural lands

• using a remote-controlled, sonar-equipped shallow draft boat (ROVER) to sonar to map and georeference nearshore habitat characteristics (depth, substrate type, plant cover) of Great Lakes wetlands and shorelines

• determining the effectiveness of gamma irradiation as a means of breaking down naphthenic acids in oilsands waste materials and reducing its toxicity to aquatic invertebrates

• helping to coordinate research and reporting on the ecological condition of Lake Erie (the Lake Erie Millennium Network)

Our lab has worked with scientists around the Lake Erie basin in coordinated projects to assess the condition of Lake Erie biota in concert with the lake’s continuing responses to nutrient loading under conditions of varying water level and climate change. The Lake Erie Trophic Status study (2003-2005) involved 27 scientists studying distribution and flux of biomass and nutrients to clarify mechanisms and extent of internal phosphorus movement, especially relating to DO depletion in central Lake Erie. Results of that research were presented in a special issue of the Journal of Great Lakes Research (2005  Volume 31: Supplement 2).  Open water and nearshore attributes vary at different scales and respond to different proximal factors. Total phosphorus (TP) loadings since 1990 have been determined mainly by regionally regulated annual variation in tributary discharges - falling from the late 1990s until around 2005 and then gradually rising to the present time. High precipitation in winter and spring cause heavy loadings of TP, which have been increasingly manifested in extensive hazardous algal blooms (HAB). A subsequent round of collaborative work led by US scientists and funded by the Great Lake Restoration Initiative (2009-2012) demonstrated that these blooms could be largely ascribed to an increasing proportion of soluble reactive phosphorus. Our lab has focused on documenting the dynamic lakewide patterns in distribution and abundance of benthic invertebrates (especially dreissenid mussels and Hexagenia mayflies) over this period. We are also investigating nutrient loadings of tributaries to Lake St. Clair, which may account for increasing frequency of HAB along Lake Erie’s north shore.

Great Lakes Environmental Indicators: Developing, Evaluating, and Integrating Biological Indicators of Environmental Conditions at Great Lakes coastal margins, and related projects (Great Lakes Coastal Wetland Monitoring, Great Lakes Environmental Assessment and Mapping).

The goal of the Great Lakes Environmental Indicators (GLEI) project is to find easily measured biological indicators that can tell us about the ecological condition of wetlands and shorelines across the entire Great Lakes coast. This is a challenge because the Great Lakes cover such a wide geographic area and because so many different kinds of human activity can affect the biota.

To decide where to sample biota, the drainage basin of each of the 731 streams and rivers flowing into the US Great Lakes was mapped. We then summarized all available data describing 214 different types of human activity in each drainage basin. Statistical analyses showed that we could summarize this information in terms of 7 classes of “environmental pressure” (agricultural and fertilizer effects, urbanization, deposition of airborne pollutants, changes to the shoreline, industrial discharges, etc.). We then calculated the amount of each type of environmental pressure for every part of the Great Lakes coastline. These summaries were used to pick suitable biological sampling locations. We wished to measure the biota at places ranging from the least affected by human activity to those that were most affected by each of the types of pressure (the Reference-Degraded Continuum).

Initially, 29 principal investigators sampled a wide variety of biota (wetland plants, algae, aquatic invertebrates, fish, amphibians, and birds) from more than 300 locations across the 5 Great Lakes. The data were used to document how the numbers and kinds of these biota change in relation to the different intensities and types of disturbance.

Some of the most promising biological indicators we have found include monitoring the numbers of bird species as a measure of urban impacts, fish community health in cattail and bulrush wetlands as indicators of agricultural impacts and population density, and frog species composition as a measure of overall habitat quality. These measurements are helping us identify the amounts and types of human activity that can sustain a diverse and healthy ecosystem in a particular area. We have since extended our mapping and assessment capacity across the whole Great Lakes basin.

More recent collaborations involve the Great Lakes Coastal Wetland Monitoring project, to assess the ecological condition of over 1200 of the largest coastal wetlands, and the Great Lakes Environmental Assessment Mapping project, which illustrates the distribution of environmental stresses and  threats into the Lakes themselves. Our most current research involves developing biological indicators of the condition of the nearshore and pelagic offshore zones of the Great Lakes.

Wetlands will make up 20-40% of the final restored landscape in areas that have been surface mined for oil sands in northeastern Alberta. The overall challenge of this project was to determine whether the guidelines regarding wetland construction using oilsands mining byproducts resulted in development of functionally self-sustaining wetland communities in post-mining landscapes.

We do not know how productivity of new wetlands is maintained. Natural wetlands slowly accumulate plant materials (organic carbon) from algal production, aquatic plants, and influx of outside materials. Inoculating new wetlands with stockpiled peat or topsoil was thought to accelerate succession and community development. The residual hydrocarbons in mine tailings (bitumen) and process water (naphthenic acids) are initially toxic, but may ultimately serve as a surrogate source of carbon once they degrade and/or are metabolized by bacteria.

Over the course of the project, we compared the effects of building wetlands using mine waste materials with the successional patterns observed in wetlands of similar age that were built or formed naturally in mine lease areas. We also assessed whether the placement of a layer of organic 'peat' soil on top of mineral sediments helped speed the development of a typical community.

The CFRAW project was developed to contrast the biological, ecotoxicological, and carbon dynamic aspects of 16 wetlands, constructed or naturally-forming over the last 5-30 years in post-mining landscapes of the Athabasca oil sands region. Begun in 2006, the project represents a collaboration of 7 oil sands mining partners with researchers at 5 universities. It was funded by CONRAD (2005-2012) and NSERC (2008-2012). The project supported the thesis research of 24 graduate students and involved the help and training of 41 undergraduate students (20 of whom undertook honours thesis projects), 9 research assistants, and 7 postdoctoral fellows (theses and publications are listed at the web site).

Study wetlands were operationally classified according to their age since construction, the reclamation materials used (oil sands vs. reference sediment and water), and their augmentation with stockpiled surface materials (peat/mineral soil mixture vs. none). We studied the community composition of aquatic plants, aquatic invertebrates, amphibians, and birds, determined the relative size of different carbon compartments, and evaluated the richness and relative abundance of species making up the food web up to 40 wetlands. Carbon pathways, flows and budgets in 16 focal wetlands were inferred by measuring sediment and water gas fluxes, microbial, plant, zoobenthic, amphibian, and tree swallow nestling production, and stable isotope signatures. The toxicity of fresh and aged oil sands process-derived water and tailings and their constituents were assessed in the laboratory and in situ by studying algae, emergent plants, zooplankton, benthic invertebrates, fishes, amphibians and birds.

Constructed wetlands were quickly colonized by submergent and emergent plants (3-5 y). However, submergent plant biomass and richness were much lower in OSPM-affected than reference wetlands of equivalent age. Zoobenthic family richness in reference wetlands reached an asymptote in 5-7 y. Overall richness, composition, and emergent plant cover of OSPM-affected wetlands only slowly became more similar to patterns seen in reference wetlands (15-20 y). Although the food webs of OSPM-affected constructed wetlands become more similar to reference constructed wetlands as they age, important differences in food web structure of OSPM-affected wetlands remain, successional trends are slower, and carbon production rates are lower than those observed in wetlands constructed in more temperate biomes.

Although the CFRAW project was formally completed in 2012, some assessments are continuing, and the PIs are collaborate on several ongoing monitoring projects. Project findings are being summarized and synthesized for use by the industrial sponsors to improve the design of constructed wetlands in the postmining landscape. A “CFRAW-2" project will likely follow completion of the data synthesis phase.

Many of the findings and recommendations of the project have already been incorporated into the design and creation of full-size constructed wetlands, including Suncor’s Wapisiw Lookout Marsh (completed in 2010) and Syncrude’s 50-ha Sandhill Fen complex (completed in 2012). The coPIs are involved in studying the early development of these and other newly created wetlands. Please visit their web pages to find out about opportunities for participating in these initiatives. For more information on the CFRAW Project, please visit the CFRAW Website.