An ongoing Cornell University Great Lakes ecosystem monitoring project, recipient of a more than $6.74 million U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant, needs such assistance to continue, a university official said in a news release.
The Ithaca, New York-based university will use the $6,749,825 in Great Lakes Restoration Initiative funds for monitoring and research that supports EPA’s Great Lakes Biology Monitoring Program, according to a March 28 agency news release announcing the grant.
EPA Region 5 Administrator Debra Shore
| epa.gov/
"Science is the foundation of our agency, but we don’t do it alone," EPA Region 5 Administrator and Great Lakes National Program Manager Debra Shore said in the news release. "This collaboration will generate critical information to advance understanding of how changing nutrient conditions, invasive species, and a warming climate are affecting the Great Lakes ecosystem."
Shore was appointed by President Joe Biden in October to become EPA's Region 5 Administrator. Region 5 encompasses Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin and 35 tribal nations.
EPA's Great Lakes Biology Monitoring Program began in 1983 to assess the Great Lakes' health and supports projects that monitor the fresh-water bodies' food web.
Cornell's project is to monitor and research "the lower part of the food web," the university said in its news release about the grant. The project's focus is on the zooplankton Mysis, shrimp-like organisms native to the Great Lakes, and benthic invertebrates, bottom feeders that have no backbones and include native and "exotic mussels," the university's news release said.
Cornell's research team also uses the EPA research vessel Lake Guardian for sample collection and analysis, in addition to building long-term, sharable datasets.
"Changes in the lake ecosystems can happen very quickly," Cornell Natural Resources and the Environment Senior Research Associate James Watkins said in the university's news release. "In 2004, Lake Huron had a major fishery collapse connected to declines in lower food web phytoplankton and zooplankton. So it’s very important to not just collect data, but also get the results out quickly to inform managers."
Watkins was the grant's principal investigator.
Cornell's Great Lakes project is in collaboration with the Great Lakes Center at SUNY Buffalo State College to gather biological community information, Watkins said in EPA's news release.
"This information is indeed vital for assessing the health of these remarkable lakes and for guiding management of one of the largest surface freshwater resources in the world and its fishery," Watkins said.
