High resolution gas chromatograph with micro-electron capture/flame ionization detector system (HRGC-uECD/FID)

生态系统受到各种各样不同的压力源的影响，如有毒污染物，栖息地改造，入侵物种，气候变暖等，这导致了诸如观赏鱼等指标物种的生产力和健康状况的下降。 目前正在开发新的工具，以补充传统的渔业评估技术，从而能够在受到不同梯度和类型压力的环境中测量和比较鱼类摄食率和生长转化效率。 两种这样的技术包括i）使用有机化学示踪剂的最先进的非稳态生物累积模型来跟踪鱼类摄食率，以及ii）使用脂肪酸特征作为鱼类生长和摄食生态学的生物标志物。该提案要求提供资金，以获得一台双通道高分辨率气相色谱仪，配备微型电子捕获检测器和火焰电离检测器，以支持校准研究，从而验证在水生生态系统中使用生态示踪剂等工具的有效性。多氯联苯（PCBs）等有机化学品已遍布地球仪，具有潜在的生态示踪应用价值。 这些化学物质已被证明可以追踪食物网的相互作用，并通过测量动物体内浓度随时间的变化，可以用来估计动物的摄食率。 所要求的基础设施将提供现有的最灵敏的仪器，以测量从点源清除的系统中的多氯联苯等化学品的超痕量水平。特定脂肪酸如多不饱和脂肪酸（PUFA）的组织积累已被证明是动物健康和生长的有用指标，最近已被用作动物饲养生态学的示踪剂。所要求的基础设施还将提供一个高通量仪器，以表征从多个系统收集的鱼类脂肪酸概况，满足五大湖环境研究所的三名教员和温莎大学环境工程系的一名教员对有机化学和脂肪酸分析的综合需求。

Ecosystems are affected by a wide variety of different stressors such as toxic contaminants, habitat modification, invading species, climate warming ect., that contribute to reductions in the productivity and health of indicators species such as sport fish.  New tools are being developed to supplement traditional fisheries assessment techniques that will enable measurement and comparison of fish feeding rates and growth conversion efficiencies in environments subject to different gradients and types of stressors.  Two such techniques include the i) use of state-of-the-art non-steady state bioaccumulation models of organic chemical tracers to track fish feeding rates and ii) use of fatty acid signatures as biomarkers of fish growth and feeding ecology. This proposal is requesting funding to obtain a duel channel high resolution gas chromatograph with micro electron capture detector and flame ionization detector to support calibration studies that will validate the use of such tools as ecological tracers in aquatic ecosystems. Organic chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have become distributed throughout the globe and thus have potential application as ecological tracers.  These chemicals have been shown to track food web interactions, and by measuring changes in concentration in animals through time, can be used to estimate animal feeding rates.  The requested infrastructure will provide the most sensitive instrumentation available needed to measure ultra-trace levels of chemicals such as PCBs in systems removed from point sources. Tissue accumulation of specific fatty acids, such as polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), have been shown to be useful indicators of animal health and growth and more recently have been used as tracers of animal feeding ecology. The requested infrastructure will also provide a high throughput instrument to characterize fatty acid profiles in fish collected from multiple systems, meeting the combined needs of organic chemical and fatty acid analyses of three faculty members at the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research and one faculty from Environmental Engineering, University of Windsor.