Nutrient Auto-Analyzer System to Assess Great Lakes Health

我们要求提供一台连续流动自动分析仪，用于分析水样中的营养物浓度，以支持共同项目研究员大幅增加对五大湖健康问题的研究。营养物的不平衡，特别是磷（P）和氮（N），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捕鱼量，而伊利湖的高磷水平则导致了有害和有毒的藻类水华。安大略湖经历了反复出现的滋扰和有毒藻类在一些海湾。由于存在许多不确定因素，因此很难将景观管理行动（过量营养物的最终来源）与改善五大湖的健康状况联系起来。这些不确定性包括：i）流域和湖泊的N和P源在驱动水质问题的各自作用; ii）输入到水生生态系统的N和P的形式和它们从景观到水生生态系统所经历的转换。正在形成的共识是，准确地量化N和P输入湖泊需要数百个样本，每年每个站，而需要多个站来了解下游N和P的转换。在河口需要来自许多地点的信息来跟踪近岸地区的N和P形态和转化，并且必须在许多地点对床沉积物进行采样以了解沉积物N和P向湖泊的总体通量。co-PI参与研究，检查城市，农业，近岸，开放湖泊和淡水底栖沉积物中的营养动态，并将营养素与初级生产，鱼类消费和沉积物中储存的污染物的释放联系起来。需要专门的基础设施，可以估计许多水和沉积物样品的N和P含量，同时尽量减少操作员错误的影响。所要求的连续流动分析仪将设在温莎大学最近建立的营养实验室（NL），这是一个共享设施，大学的所有教师和学生都可以使用。我们预计共有14名硕士，12名博士和2名PDF将在使用的前5年内从所要求的基础设施中受益。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.