Market Assessment of field deployable assays for phyto-ecological monitoring

与GCC有关的人口增长、城市化和水文格局变化 已经导致整个北美城市流域的水质受损。当水质出现问题时 如果影响到我们流域现有的植被，植被提供的生态系统服务也可能受到影响。目前还没有基于现场或实验室的快速分析方法来评估水质对加拿大新兴湿地植被的影响，也没有既定的标准来评估水质对湿地植被有益共生体的影响。因此，确定北美分水岭的水中污染物对湿地和河岸植被的毒性的能力微乎其微，也不存在量化实地影响的能力。拟议研究的目标是对基于现场和实验室的生物测试进行商业市场评估，以量化水质对湿地植被及其相关根部共生生物的影响。

Growing human populations, increasing urbanization and altered hydrological patterns associated with GCC have lead to water quality impairment in urban watersheds throughout North America. When water quality affects vegetation present in our watersheds, the ecosystem services provided by the vegetation may also suffer. There is currently no rapid field- or laboratory-based assay to assess water quality impacts on emergent wetland vegetation in Canada, and no established criteria to assess water quality effects on beneficial symbionts of wetland vegetation. Consequently, the ability to determine toxicity of water borne contaminants in North American watersheds to wetland and riparian vegetation is minimal and an ability to quantify effects in the field is non-existent. The goal of the proposed research is to conduct a commercial market assessment for fieldand lab-based bioassays to quantify water quality effects on wetland vegetation and their associated root symbionts.