SGER Katrina: Responses of fish and crabs to nearshore habitat degradation in Lake Pontchartrain caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

知识价值：2005年8月29日，卡特里娜飓风在新奥尔良南部登陆，成为4级飓风。20 - 30英尺高的风暴潮加上飓风带来的强降雨，使新奥尔良市的防洪系统和大型泵站不堪重负。其结果是，新奥尔良市区的许多地区遭到大规模破坏。这种破坏的很大一部分是由庞特查特雷恩湖的洪水长期夹带在大都市地区直接造成的。2005年9月24日，飓风丽塔在路易斯安那州查尔斯湖附近登陆，三级飓风带来的风暴潮再次使大都会地区的防洪系统不堪负荷，严重的洪水再次发生。卡特里娜飓风和丽塔飓风造成了前所未有的社会经济破坏，这将使这场风暴成为美国历史上最致命和经济代价最高的风暴，除此之外，与风暴及其后果相关的环境破坏对该地区的生态系统造成了另一种损害。对于近岸环境来说，卡特里娜飓风和丽塔飓风最大的影响将是将污染和富含营养的水排入庞恰特雷恩湖。由于杰斐逊和奥尔良教区的洪水造成了巨大的公共健康风险，这些充满污染物和营养物的停滞水被直接排入庞恰特雷恩湖，其体积远远超过了正常的排水量，没有对污染物和营养物水平进行限制。虽然州和联邦机构正在监测水域的污染物和营养水平，但很少有资源关注对河口生态系统的生物影响。这项探索性研究小额赠款（SGER）使研究人员能够量化新奥尔良市和邻近杰斐逊教区的洪水对近岸底栖无脊椎动物和底栖鱼类群落的直接影响。研究人员将对底栖无脊椎动物和底栖鱼类进行取样，以记录庞恰特莱南湖近岸地区栖息地退化的时空程度。为了评估选定的移动消费者（鱼和蟹）的功能反应，研究人员将采用一种新颖的声学遥测方法来记录栖息地的利用情况。鲍尔斯在1990年代初研究排水渠对南庞查特兰湖近岸底栖生物群落的影响时收集的卡特里娜/丽塔飓风之前的数据将用于与抽样活动进行比较。更广泛的影响：拟议的研究将传统的底栖生物生态学与创新的新技术结合起来，以解决在美国沿海近岸生态系统遭受最大自然灾害之后对海洋生态和保护至关重要的问题。研究生和本科生将参加实地工作和实地工作后的处理活动，从而允许利用这一重大干扰事件作为海洋科学家的教育机会，他们将被要求应对未来的灾害。

Intellectual Merit: On August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina made landfall south of New Orleans as major category 4 hurricane. The 20 - 30 ft storm surge coupled with intense rain from the hurricane overwhelmed the city of New Orleans' flood control system of levees and large pumping stations. The result was large scale destruction of many areas within metropolitan New Orleans. A significant portion of this devastation was directly caused by the entrainment of flood water from Lake Pontchartrain in the metropolitan area for a prolonged period. On September 24, 2005 the flood control system was again overwhelmed in many portions of the metropolitan area by storm surge associated with landfall of Hurricane Rita, a category 3 hurricane, near Lake Charles, Louisiana and significant flooding reoccurred. In addition to the unprecedented socioeconomic devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which will make the storm the most deadly and economically costly in U.S. history, environmental damage associated with the storm and its aftermath poses another source of injury to the regions ecosystem. For the nearshore environment, the largest impact from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita will be the discharge of contaminated and nutrient rich waters into Lake Pontchartrain. Because of the enormous public health risk that flood waters in Jefferson and Orleans Parish posed, the stagnant, contaminant and nutrient laden water was discharge directly into Lake Pontchartrain - the volume of which far exceeded normal discharge rates with no restrictions on contaminant and nutrient levels. While state and federal agencies are monitoring waters for contaminant and nutrient levels, few have the resources to focus on the biological impact to the estuarine ecosystem. This Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) award allows the investigators to quantify the immediate impacts of discharge of flood waters from the City of New Orleans and adjacent Jefferson Parish on the nearshore benthic invertebrate and demersal fish community. The investigators will sample benthic invertebrate and demersal fish to document the spatial and temporal extent of habitat degradation in the nearshore areas of southern Lake Pontchartrain. To assess the functional responses of selected mobile consumers (fish and crabs), the investigators will apply a novel acoustic telemetry approach to document habitat utilization. Pre-Katrina/Rita data collected by Powers in the early 1990's in a study of the impact of outfall canals on nearshore benthic communities of southern Lake Pontchatrain will be used for comparison with the sampling activities.Broader Impact: The proposed study couples traditional benthic ecology with innovative new technology to resolve questions of critical importance to marine ecology and conservation in the wake of one the largest natural disasters to strike the nearshore ecosystem of the coastal US. Graduate and undergraduate students will participate in the field work and post-field work processing activities, thus allowing the use of this major disturbance event as an educational opportunity for marine scientists who will be called upon to respond to future disasters.