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GLERL What's New: 1999
Great Lakes Environmental Research
Laboratory
Distinguished Scientist Seminar Series
Dr. Stephen Lozano
US Environmental Protection Agency
National Health and Environmental Effects Research Lab
Duluth, Minnesota
"The Ecological Condition of Lake Ontario: An EMAP Experience"
Location: Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory
2205 Commonwealth Blvd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48105-2945
Date: Friday September 17th, 1999
Time: 11:00 am
Room: 105 (Main Conference Room)
Benthic invertebrates play a critical role in the Lake Ontario ecosystem including carbon transfer up the food chain and cycling of nutrients between the sediments and water. The recent invasion of Dreissena polymorpha and D. bugensis into Lake Ontario has brought about dramatic changes in abundance and distribution of important benthic species whose populations have been extirpated from a contiguous zone around the lake, encompassing over 40% of the total surface area of soft sediments. Mean declines in Diporeia, Oligochaeta and Sphaeriidae ranged from 40% to 100% at all depths. It appears that Dreissena has disrupted the Lake Ontario food chain with major consequences to benthic invertebrate species and forage fish that depend upon Diporeia for food.
For further information, please contact:
Steve Brandt
NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory
2205 Commonwealth Blvd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48105-2945
734-741-2244
stephen.b.brandt@noaa.gov
Last updated: September 19, 2002 mbl