COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Opening Pandora's Box with a Biotic Key: Can Cyanobacterial Blooms in Nutrient-Poor Lakes Accelerate Eutrophication?

摘要本奖项由2009年美国复苏与再投资法案（公法111-5）资助。淡水生态系统提供对人类福祉至关重要的生态服务，如饮用水、食物资源和废水处理。如果人类活动及其影响超过了系统吸收或缓冲这些活动的能力，这些系统很容易受到这些服务中断的影响。人们早就知道，淡水系统中过多的营养负荷会导致水质下降和滋扰藻类的大量繁殖。生物制剂的作用尚不清楚。初步结果表明，它们可以通过促进沉积物中积累的营养物质的释放，加速从营养贫乏的湖泊向富营养化湖泊的转变。该奖项将探讨棘球绦虫在加速富营养化方面的作用。本研究将探讨棘球藻如何影响氮磷有效性以及整个湖泊的代谢。通过野外观测、实验室和野外实验、古生态学、建模和比较研究，pi将阐明Gloeotrichia华在富营养化中的驱动作用。鉴于近年来棘球藻在东北地区湖泊中的扩展，本研究具有及时的资源管理应用价值。该项目确定了一些活动（学生培训、湖泊管理协会），这些活动将扩大研究的影响。它们是国际湖泊网络，即全球湖泊生态网络的积极参与者，从而确保结果将在全球范围内迅速传播。

AbstractThis award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Freshwater ecosystems provide vital ecological services important to human well being such as drinking water, food resources, and waste water treatment. These systems are vulnerable to disruption of these services if human activities and their impacts exceed the capacity of the system to absorb or buffer them. It has been long known that excessive nutrient loads to freshwater systems can result in a reduction in water quality and blooms in nuisance algae. What has not been understood is the role of biological agents. Initial results indicate that they can accelerate this shift from a nutrient poor lake to a eutrophic lake by facilitating the release of accumulated nutrients from the sediments. This award will explore the role that Gloeotrichia echinulata plays in accelerating eutrophication. The research will explore how G. echinulata affects both nitrogen and phosphorus availability as well as whole lake metabolism. Through field observations, laboratory and field experiments, paleoecology, modeling and comparative studies, the PIs will elucidate the role of Gloeotrichia blooms as a driver of eutrophication. The research is timely and will have immediate resource management application, given the recent expansion of G. echinulata into lakes across the Northeast. The project identified a number of activities (student training, lake management associations) which will lead to broadened impacts of the research. The PIs are active participants in the international lakes network, Global Lakes Ecological Network, thus ensuring the results will be rapidly disseminated on a global scale.