Nutrient Auto-Analyzer System to Assess Great Lakes Health

我们要求使用一台连续流动自动分析仪来分析水样中的营养物质浓度，以支持合作方案大幅增加对五大湖健康专题的研究。养分失衡，特别是磷(P)和氮(N)的失衡，是对五大湖水生生态系统服务的最大威胁。休伦湖的低磷水平限制了商业鱼类的捕捞，而伊利湖的高磷水平造成了滋扰和有毒的藻类水华。安大略湖在许多海湾反复出现滋扰和有毒藻类水华。由于存在许多不确定因素，很难将对景观(营养过剩的最终来源)的管理行动与五大湖健康状况的改善联系起来。这些不确定性包括：i)N和P的分水岭和湖床来源在驱动水质问题方面的各自作用；ii)N和P输入到水生生态系统的形式及其从景观到水生生态系统的转变。新出现的共识是，准确量化湖泊的N和P输入需要每个站点每年数百个样本，而需要多个站点来了解下游N和P的转化。在河流入海口需要多个地点的信息，以跟踪近岸地区N和P的形态和转化，必须在许多地点对底泥进行采样，以了解进入湖泊的总沉积物N和P通量。联合PIs参与了一项研究，该研究考察了城市、农业、近岸、开阔湖泊和淡水海底沉积物中的营养动态，并将营养与初级生产、鱼类消费建议和沉积物中储存的污染物的释放联系起来。需要专用的基础设施，以估计许多水和沉积物样品的N和P含量，同时将操作员误差的影响降至最低。所要求的连续流动分析仪将设在温莎大学最近成立的营养实验室(NL)，这是该大学所有教职员工和学生都可以访问的共享设施。我们预计在使用的头5年中，共有14个硕士、12个博士和2个PDF将从所请求的基础设施的使用中受益。所要求的设备将促进对五大湖中最重要的污染物进行更快、更翔实的研究、更大的样本量和更稳健的研究设计。

We request a continuous flow auto-analyzer for the analysis of nutrient concentrations in water samples to support a substantial increase in the co-PIs’ research on the topic of Great Lakes Health. Nutrient imbalances, especially of phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N), represent the single greatest threat to aquatic ecosystem services in the Great Lakes. Low P levels in Lake Huron limit the commercial fish catch, while high P levels in Lake Erie have contributed to nuisance and toxic algal blooms. Lake Ontario experiences recurring nuisance and toxic algal blooms in a number of embayments. There are many uncertainties that make it difficult to link management actions on the landscape (the ultimate source of excess nutrients) to improvements in the health of the Great Lakes. These uncertainties include: i) the respective roles of watershed and lakebed sources of N and P in driving water quality problems; ii) the forms of N and P input to aquatic ecosystems and the transformations they undergo from landscapes to aquatic ecosystems. The emerging consensus is that accurately quantifying N and P inputs to lakes requires hundreds of samples per station per year, while multiple stations are needed to understand downstream N and P transformation. Information from many locations is needed at the mouths of rivers to track the N and P form and transformation in nearshore areas, and bed sediments must be sampled at many locations to understand the overall sediment N and P flux to lakes. The co-PIs are involved in research that examines nutrient dynamics in urban, agricultural, nearshore, open lake, and freshwater benthic sediments, and that links nutrients to primary production, fish consumption advisories, and the release of contaminants stored in sediments. Dedicated infrastructure is needed that can estimate the N and P content of many water and sediment samples while minimizing the effects of operator error. The requested continuous flow analyzer will be based in the University of Windsor’s recently established Nutrient Lab (NL), a shared facility that all faculty and students in the University can access. We anticipate a total of 14 MSc, 12 PhD, and 2 PDFs to benefit from the use of the requested infrastructure in the first 5 years of use. The requested equipment will foster faster, more informative research, larger sample sizes, and more robust study designs, into the most important pollutants in the Great Lakes.