Ecological implications of complex mixtures of contaminants in aquatic habitats

在人类世，人类活动正在挑战水生生态系统，其压力源组合没有自然类似物（例如，合成化学品、快速气候变化）。这些压力源有可能从根本上改变生物系统的各个层次的组织，包括个人，人口和社区。在我的研究中，我进行自然和操纵实验，以了解人为压力对自然系统的生物和生态影响。理解和预测这些压力源的影响是现代生态学中一个关键的突出挑战。我使用生态学，生态毒理学，保护科学，生理学，分子生物学和环境化学的工具来调查水生栖息地人为压力的复杂混合物的影响。 具体来说，我的研究重点是微塑料作为一种新的模型系统，用于研究多种压力源的协同生物影响。由于颗粒本身的物理影响，微塑料可以作为物理压力源，也可以作为化学压力源，这是由于在制造过程中添加的固有化学物质以及从周围水中积累在这些颗粒上的化学物质。 我的研究贡献建立了关于微塑料的命运，暴露和生物影响的基本知识，并确定了我们对这些污染物的生态理解的差距，表明人们对微塑料如何影响人口，社区和生态系统知之甚少。在NSERC的资助下，我的研究项目将继续使用微塑料作为模型系统，以回答有关微塑料如何单独以及与气候变化相关的压力因素相结合改变当地和全球生态系统的过程的基本问题。 微塑料已成为全球和加拿大关注的污染物，在加拿大，它们在劳伦特五大湖特别丰富。我的实验室将提供有关微塑料及其相关化学污染物对生态系统的影响的重要信息，无论是在目前的条件下，还是在反映预测未来气候情景的改变的热和化学环境下。我的研究计划将使用实验室和实地研究来衡量微塑料如何影响个体动物，种群和社区，这些信息对于填补现有的知识空白和为管理决策提供信息至关重要。为了确保我的实验室的研究能够被从业者所接受，我正在指导和培训一群不同的学生和博士后，使他们成为有效的沟通者和领导者。这些技能不仅为学生从事各种工作做好了准备（例如，政府，非政府组织，学术），而且还增加了我们的科学的知名度和可及性。

In the Anthropocene, human activities are challenging aquatic ecosystems with a combination of stressors that have no natural analogue (e.g., synthetic chemicals, rapid climate change). Such stressors have the potential to fundamentally alter biotic systems at all levels of organization, including individuals, populations, and communities. In my research, I conduct natural and manipulative experiments to understand the organismal and ecological effects that anthropogenic stressors can have on natural systems. Understanding and predicting the impacts of these stressors is a key outstanding challenge in modern ecology. I use tools from ecology, ecotoxicology, conservation science, physiology, molecular biology and environmental chemistry to investigate the effects of a complex mixture of anthropogenic stressors in aquatic habitats. Specifically, my research focuses on microplastics as a novel model system for studying the synergistic biological impacts of multiple stressors. Microplastics can act as physical stressors, due to physical impacts of the particles themselves, and chemical stressors, due to both innate chemicals added during manufacturing as well as chemicals that accumulate on these particles from surrounding water. My research contributions have established basic knowledge about fate, exposure and organismal impacts of microplastics and have identified gaps in our ecological understanding of these contaminants, demonstrating that there is little knowledge of how microplastics affect populations, communities, and ecosystems. With NSERC funding, my research program will continue to use microplastics as a model system to answer fundamental questions regarding processes that contribute to how microplastics, alone and in combination with stressors related to climate change, alter ecosystems locally and globally. Microplastics have become a contaminant of concern globally and in Canada, where they are particularly abundant across the Laurentian Great Lakes. My laboratory will contribute vital information about the consequences of microplastics and their associated chemical contaminants for ecosystems, both under present conditions as well as under altered thermal and chemical environments that reflect projected future climate scenarios. My research program will use laboratory and field studies to measure how microplastics impact individual animals, populations, and communitiesinformation that is critical to fill existing knowledge gaps and to inform management decisions. To ensure that research from my lab is accessible to practitioners, I am mentoring and training a diverse group of students and postdocs to be effective communicators and leaders. These skills not only prepare students for a diversity of jobs (e.g., government, NGO, academic), but also increase the visibility and accessibility of our science.