Status of the Lower Food Web in the Offshore Waters of the Laurentian Great Lakes
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STATUS OF THE LOWER FOOD WEB IN THE OFFSHORE WATERS OF THE LAURENTIAN GREAT LAKES STATUS OF THE LOWER FOOD WEB IN THE OFFSHORE WATERS OF THE LAURENTIAN GREAT LAKES Trends for chemical, physical, and biological variables through 2018 Prepared By: United States Environmental Protection Agency Great Lakes National Program Office 77 W. Jackson Blvd., Chicago, IL 60604 March 2021 EPA 905-R-20-007 GDIT 3170 Fairview Park Dr., Falls Church, VA, 22042 MARCH 2021 PAGE | 1 STATUS OF THE LOWER FOOD WEB IN THE OFFSHORE WATERS OF THE LAURENTIAN GREAT LAKES TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ...................................................................................................................................... iii List of Tables ........................................................................................................................................ iii Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................................. iv Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................ v 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 1 2 Methods ............................................................................................................................................. 1 3 Results ............................................................................................................................................... 3 3.1 Water Quality Variables ............................................................................................................. 3 3.1.1 Spring Total Phosphorus .................................................................................................. 3 3.1.2 Spring Soluble Silica ....................................................................................................... 4 3.1.3 Secchi Depth .................................................................................................................... 4 3.1.4 Chlorophyll-a ................................................................................................................... 6 3.2 Biology Variables ....................................................................................................................... 9 3.2.1 Phytoplankton .................................................................................................................. 9 3.2.2 Crustacean Zooplankton ................................................................................................ 11 3.2.3 Mysis.............................................................................................................................. 13 3.2.4 Benthos .......................................................................................................................... 13 4 Conclusions ..................................................................................................................................... 17 5 References ....................................................................................................................................... 20 Appendix A – List of the Sampling and Analytical Standard Operating Procedures ........................... A-1 MARCH 2021 PAGE | ii STATUS OF THE LOWER FOOD WEB IN THE OFFSHORE WATERS OF THE LAURENTIAN GREAT LAKES LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Map of GLNPO long-term monitoring stations for annual spring and summer nutrient and plankton sampling (includes phytoplankton, zooplankton, Mysis) and summer benthos sampling..................................................................................................................... 3 Figure 2. Spring total phosphorus (TP) and soluble silica (Si) from 1983 to 2018 in the Great Lakes. 5 Figure 3. Spring (left panels) and summer (right panels) Secchi depth from 1983 to 2019 in the Great Lakes. ............................................................................................................................ 7 Figure 4. Monthly averaged (March–October) surface chlorophyll concentrations at GLNPO WQS station locations in the Great Lakes, 1998–2018. .................................................................... 8 Figure 5. Basin-wide averages of phytoplankton biovolume in spring (left) and summer (right) from 2001 to 2018. ........................................................................................................................ 10 Figure 6. Summer crustacean volumetric biomass (mg DW/m3), by major taxonomic group, for the Great Lakes, 1997–2018. The upper right graph shows zooplankton volumetric (left axis; left bars) and areal (right axis; right bars) biomass for all five lakes in 2018. ....... 12 Figure 7. Mysis diluviana areal density (mg DW/m2) from 2006–2018 from stations deeper than 30 meters in Lakes Ontario, Michigan, Huron, and Superior ..................................................... 14 Figure 8. Density (2003–2018) and biomass (2012–2018) of dreissenid mussels for shallow sites (< 70 m, top plots) and deep sites (> 70 m, bottom plots) in the Great Lakes. ..................... 15 Figure 9. Great Lakes total areal biomass (wet weight) by major taxonomic group for 2018 in all lakes (upper left plot) and areal density by major taxonomic group for 1997–2019 by individual lake. ...................................................................................................................... 16 LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Results of Spearman rank correlations on selected lower food web variables in the Great Lakes ........................................................................................................................... 19 MARCH 2021 PAGE | iii STATUS OF THE LOWER FOOD WEB IN THE OFFSHORE WATERS OF THE LAURENTIAN GREAT LAKES ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work was supported under the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) Great Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO) as part of EPA Contract No. EP-C-15-012, Technical, Analytical, and Regulatory Mission Support for the Water Security Division, with CSRA, LLC, a General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) company, under the direction of Louis Blume, Project Manager as well as by agreements with Cornell University (Department of Natural Resources) under award agreement GL-00E01184 from the USEPA “Great Lakes Long Term Biological Monitoring of Zooplankton, Benthos, and Chlorophyll-a” and with Regents of the University of Minnesota from the USEPA under award agreements GL-00E23101-2 and GL-00E01980 “Great Lakes Biological Monitoring: Phytoplankton.” GLNPO gratefully acknowledges the support of the following team members in the preparation of this Technical Report: Affiliation Team Member(s) USEPA GLNPO Elizabeth Hinchey Malloy, Anne Scofield, Eric Osantowski, Nicole Singleton, Marc Tuchman, Louis Blume Cornell University Jim Watkins, Lars Rudstam, Toby Holda Buffalo State College Lyubov Burlakova, Alexander Karatayev University of Minnesota Euan Reavie Duluth GDIT Richard Barbiero, Barry Lesht, Julie Lietz, Molly Middlebrook Amos Cover Photo: Satellite-estimated surface chlorophyll-a concentration in the Great Lakes – August 2018 Citation: U.S. EPA 2021. Status of the Lower Food Web in the Offshore Waters of the Laurentian Great Lakes: Trends for chemical, physical, and biological variables through 2018. EPA 905-R-20-007. MARCH 2021 PAGE | iv STATUS OF THE LOWER FOOD WEB IN THE OFFSHORE WATERS OF THE LAURENTIAN GREAT LAKES EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report presents data on selected chemical, physical, and biological variables that characterize the base of the Great Lakes ecosystem in offshore waters. Lake Erie is currently the only Great Lake in which total phosphorus concentrations consistently (western and central basin) or intermittently (eastern basin) exceed interim substance objectives contained in the 2012 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA). Summer cyanobacterial blooms are a consistent feature of the western basin, while summer/autumn chlorophyll-a has been notably higher in the central and eastern basins in the past 10 years. Abundant phytoplankton are likely contributing to late-summer hypoxia in the central basin. During summer, crustacean zooplankton biomass (volumetric) is also highest in Lake Erie, although there is considerable interannual variability; summer biomass is dominated by cladocerans and cyclopoid copepods. There has been no evidence of directional change in zooplankton or benthos communities in the past decade. Recent total phosphorus concentrations, transparencies, and surface chlorophyll-a concentrations in Lake Ontario are characteristic of an oligotrophic system. Crustacean zooplankton communities have shifted away from species indicative of high planktivory (cyclopoids, bosminids, small daphnids, Cercopagis) and towards calanoid copepods, larger daphnids, and Bythotrephes. In addition, the amphipod Diporeia, absent from shallow Lake Ontario sites by 1997, had almost entirely disappeared from deep sites by 2011. Current benthos communities are dominated by Dreissena, which continues to increase in deep region of the lake, and oligochaetes. The rapid shifts in the lower food web experienced by Lake Huron and, to a lesser extent, Lake Michigan, in the early to mid-2000s are moderating. The offshore lower food webs of both lakes are currently characterized by