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

• Investigate the genetics of populations of Phragmites australis
  (common reed) throughout the Lake Michigan coast of Illinois and Indiana

• Determine the ecological changes caused by nonindigenous species that were introduced and established in the Great Lakes via ship ballast discharges
• Quantify the minimum net financial cost (based on market costs) imposed on
  the Great Lakes region by shipping-mediated nonindigenous species
• Forecast the potential range in North America for a subset of high risk species
• Assess how unquantified costs (for currently unstudied species, for market costs imposed outside the Great Lakes region, for non-market costs imposed within and outside the Great Lakes region) might change our evaluation of the net cost of the species and net value of shipping
• Develop policy recommendations and an outreach strategy to inform the public and policy-makers as decisions are made about the management of ballast and the St. Lawrence Seaway

Lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) are facing a number of threats, including both climate change and predation by invasive species. Despite these ongoing threats to multiple life stages, research has rarely investigated pressures in combination. When studies do assess one of these threats, they often focus on a single life stage, and it is not often the embryonic stage. Our study aims to understand how climate change could impact predator recognition, memory, and avoidance in the two earliest life stages of lake sturgeon. We will “train” lake sturgeon embryos to recognize a predator using associative learning of olfactory alarm and predator cues. We will also raise the embryos in different thermal conditions. At the embryonic stage, we anticipate that those in the warmest water will exhibit the weakest antipredator behaviors, and those in the coolest will exhibit the strongest. At the larval stage, we anticipate those that were raised in the warmest water will have the weakest memory of the predator, and will lose their antipredator behaviors most quickly, while those raised in the coolest water will retain their memory of the predator the longest. Our research will help inform conservation plans for hatcheries looking to rear early-life lake sturgeon for release into Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes region more broadly.

This study will evaluate the extent to which exposure to environmentally relevant concentrations of a representative SSRI (citalopram) during early development (embryonic and larval stages) impairs learning and cognition and alters innate behaviors in a model species for ecotoxicological research, fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas). Specifically, this study will test the hypothesis that exposure to SSRIs alters the behavior of fish at vulnerable early life stages in ways that reduce fitness (i.e., reduced ability to learn during foraging, impaired risk perception and social behavior).

This research will expand our comprehension of pharmaceutical water pollution in the Great Lakes— specifically behavioral effects on key prey species–which is relevant to the IISG’s focus on healthy coastal ecosystems. Forage fish are primary food sources for many important recreational fish species in the Great Lakes. Individual-level changes in learning, cognition, and perceptions of fear that increase early mortality, can translate into long-term population and community impacts. Furthermore, this work will aid in efforts to address threats like legacy contaminants and emerging pollutants, to mitigate environmental degradation in these crucial waterbodies. The outcomes of this research will allow a more complete understanding of organismal health and fitness in urban-impacted waters and improve ecosystem stability in lake Michigan.

• Investigate the feasibility of a new treatment process, based on microbial fuel cells and membrane-supported biofilms reactors for removing nitrogen and sulfide in simulated recirculating aquaculture systems wastewater.
• Determine the nitrogen and sulfide removal efficiencies, and levels of electric power production
• Test different reactor configurations under variable loading conditions