Lawrence Today magazine, Spring 2004
The impact of the exploding non-native
zebra mussel population on the ecosystem of the bay of Green Bay will be
the focus
of
a three-year
study
conducted by
Associate Professor of Biology Bart De Stasio, ’82, starting in March
2005. The research will be funded by a $206,000 grant from the University of
Wisconsin Sea Grant Program.
A specialist in aquatic biology, especially predator-prey interactions, De
Stasio will combine advanced computer modeling with field study to determine
the effects the exotic invader is having on the populations of phytoplankton,
benthos, zoo-plankton, and fish species.
Widely considered one of the most productive fisheries in the Great Lakes,
Green Bay had been studied extensively prior to the invasion by zebra mussels,
but De Stasio’s study will be the first to explore the dramatic changes
the coastal ecosystem of Green Bay has undergone since zebra mussels were first
discovered there in 1992 and only the third of its kind in the entire Great
Lakes basin.
The project has three main objectives. One is to identify information gaps
in existing data by conducting field studies on key components of the lower
food web at sites that were investigated extensively prior to the zebra mussel
invasion, in addition
to analyzing unpublished data from that period.
A second objective is to estimate the abundance of algae, crustaceans, zebra
mussels, and fish and measure their interactions in the Green Bay food web.
The project will study areas from the mouth of the Fox River in Green Bay to
as far north as Sturgeon Bay on the eastern shore to Oconto on the western
shore.
The study’s third objective involves the construction of a dynamic energy/mass
balance-flow ecosystem model of Green Bay that can be used for comparison with
current modeling efforts done for the Bay of Quinte on Lake Ontario and Oneida
Lake in New York.
"Green Bay is an ideal site, because of the abundance of good data that
had been collected by Lawrence Professor Emeritus Sumner Richman and
other researchers prior to the arrival of the zebra mussel,” De Stasio
says.
"This study will provide a great opportunity to collect new data and create
ecosystem models that will be invaluable to other scientists. We want to establish
collaborations with researchers at Cornell University and the Ontario Department
of Fisheries and Oceans, so we can determine the impact the zebra mussel is
having on similar ecosystems not just in northeast Wisconsin but throughout
the entire Great Lakes region.”
The grant will enable two Lawrence students to join De Stasio as technicians
and summer research assistants each year of the study, in addition to funding
a project technician and supporting one graduate student at the UW-Green Bay.
This will be De Stasio’s second investigation of zebra mussels in Northeast
Wisconsin. With a 1995 grant from the National Science Foundation, he established
a baseline data-set for ecological and genetic dynamics to measure the impact
of zebra mussels on the Lake Winnebago watershed.