Aquatic Ecology and Ecosystem Dynamics
Explore the complex nature of aquatic food webs and near-shore processes as part of the Aquatic Ecology and Ecosystems Dynamics research team.
With fresh water only a few steps away from the front door of the Great Lakes Research Center, researchers have truly amazing opportunities for their studies. Our research topics, ranging from near-shore carbon-cycling processes and global carbon budgets to mitigation of heavy-metal-laden mining byproducts, have both a local and global impact.
Given our location in one of the top ten snowiest areas in the nation, we also have wonderful winter-water research opportunities. Current topics of interest include nutrient cycling in ice-covered near-shore streams and the impact of increasingly warmer winters on the coastal food web.
| Faculty | Areas of Interest |
|---|---|
Chrysophyte algae; Algal Systematics; Algal Culturing | |
Limnology; Engineering approaches to lake and river management; Mathematical modeling of surface water quality | |
Fish Biology; Zooplankton ecology; Limnology; Conservation Biology | |
Limnology of the Great Lakes; Primary productivity; Phytoplankton dunamics; Laurentian Great Lakes | |
Origin and fate of DOC in terrestrial, lake, and marine environments; Methods for detection of free radicals, photochemical transformations of natural and anthropogenic organic compounds in the environment; Oxidative degradation reactions; Response of aquatic systems to climate change; Effects of electrostatic charge and ionic strength on fast reaction kinetics; Behavior of metal-contaminated sediments in the Lake Superior basin; Fluorescence-based analytical methods | |
Algal Extracellular Polymers and Biocomposites - Regulation of Biogenesis | |
Fish ecology, biology, functional morphology; Ecology of lakes, streams, and their riparian interface with terrestrial systems; effects of land use on ecological systems; Biomonitoring for research and restoration | |
Soil carbon; Plant/soil relationships; Decomposition; Dissolved organic carbon; Wildfire; Black carbon | |
Aquatic Ecology; Paleoecology | |
Limnology; Ecosystem Ecology of Streams and Rivers; Biogeochemistry | |
Numerical and Experimental Investigations of Contaminant Transport in Groundwater Vadose Zones; Mathematical Optimization of Groundwater Remediation Systems: Multi-Objective and Uncertainty Problems; Surfactant-Enhanced Dissolution of Nonaqueous Phase Liquids in Subsurface Systems; Groundwater Flow in a Fault Zone in the Vicinity of Desert Hot Springs, California; Simulation of Saltwater Intrusion in the Guaymas Valley, Sonora, Mexico California | |
Environmental and Natural Resources Policy; Sustainability science; Landscape ecology; Biodiversity and Conservation; International Trade; Information Theory | |
Understanding the identities, occurrence, and transformation of aerosol organic compounds; Identifying organic aerosol constituents from a variety of atmospheric environments; Exploration of new LC column chemistries with ultrahigh pressure pumps for fast and thorough separations; Aqueous reaction pathways | |
Phycology - Physiological and Quantitative Ecology; Coastal Marine, Estuarine/Wetland Biology and Limnology; Univariate and Multivariate Statistics, Experimental Design; Environmental Modeling | |
Air and water quality; Atmosphere/biosphere exchange of chemicals; Micrometeorology; Environmental analytical chemistry | |
Aquatic ecology; Aquatic-terrestrial links; Conservation and management of aquatic systems; Long-term monitoring | |
Hydrodynamic modeling of the Great Lakes and other coastal regions including theoretical, numerical, and observational investigations of circulation, thermal structure, seiches, storm surges, wind waves, and air-sea interaction; Applications of hydrodynamic modeling to water quality problems, including transport of bacteria from tributary sources to swimming beaches and predictive tracking of algal blooms | |
Oceanic Sciences/Natural Resources; AR, MS, and Photo-imaging Applied to Oceanography; Earth Resources; Military Coastal Environmental Assessment | |
Environmental cycles of major and trace elements; Sediment diagenesis and stratigraphy; Chemistry of natural organic matter; Wetland biogeochemistry; Environmental impact and fate of pollutants; Influence of organisms on the chemical environment; Role of chemical environment in controlling populations | |
Hydrodynamic Modeling; Coupled physical-biological numerical modeling; Dynamics of Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Models; Ocean Data Assimilation; Estuary and Coastal ocean circulation, oceanic frontal processes | |
Remote Sensing and GIS applications in freshwater aquatic ecosystem; Population dynamics (predator-prey, competition, parasitism); Lower food-web (zooplankton, phytoplankton) in lakes | |
