The researchers used molecular tools to characterize microbial communities in the changing biogeochemistry of Lake Michigan (2012-2015) and across the Laurentian Great Lakes.

Story: IISG researchers identify microbes throughout the Great Lakes

• Determine how Lake Michigan microbial communities compare between near- to offshore sites and sites experiencing different nutrient inputs
• Evaluate which organisms are breaking down and assimilating various dissolved organic matter sources
• Determine how the response to a dissolved organic matter pulse is transmitted through the community over time

• Determine whether important Lake Michigan sport fish, such as yellow perch, bass, salmon, and walleye, utilize coastal wetland habitat during various  periods of their lives and to what degree they depend on food provided by coastal wetlands

• Investigate the factors influencing the adoption and maintenance of rain barrels, a commonly promoted urban-suburban best management practice, in the Salt Creek watershed in northwestern Indiana

• Test the acute and chronic effects of cotinine, and triclocarban on aquatic organisms including: green algae (Pseudokirchneriella capricornutum), water fleas (Daphnia magna) and fathead minnows
• Test the effects of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) detected in Lake Michigan on diatom (Cyclotella meneghiniana) survival
• Conduct a mixture study chronically exposing D. magna, P.capricornotum, C. meneghiniana, and P. promelas to several PPCPs