The objective of this work is to characterize microbial metabolism across a gradient of impacted sites in southwest Lake Michigan, spanning NE Illinois to NW Indiana.

While microbes tend to alter their environments as ecosystem engineers, their existence is a function of their environment. Any organism has a range of conditions it can tolerate; aquatic microbes and their metabolisms are generally dependent on temperature, pH, light, and resource availability. Humans also tend to significantly alter our environment, and we have shown the ability to cause change much faster than microbes. Increase of the planet’s temperature through greenhouse gas emissions will increase water temperatures and further reduce ice cover over the coming decades. On a finer scale, industrial practices emit pollutants into the coastal air, soil, sediments, and waters. The effects of these actions, prevalent in southwest Lake Michigan,
are poorly understood.

• Identify the factors responsible for variable mortality and growth of Dreissena larvae in the Illinois River and Hudson River Estuary.
• Model the interaction of flow with growth and mortality to predict the spatial and temporal patterns of settlement across systems.
• Determine how larval dynamics contribute to spatial and temporal patterns of settlement in the field.

• Develop a modeling framework for the representation, evaluation, and reporting the effectiveness of low impact development practices using curve number technology

• Assess changes in juvenile fish and zooplankton assemblages in Lake Michigan

• Explore the relationship between land use structural complexity and surface water quality
• Assess the role of seasonal differentials on surface water quality
• Explore the implications of future land use and climate changes on surface water quality

• Design, construction, demonstration and optimization of versatile new sensors and sensor materials for critical and emerging LaMP and EPA pollutants