Grant: Alliance Grants
University of Guelph
$279,042.00
Rewired Great Lakes Food Webs: Implications for Fish Production and Resilience
EF 2024-25
Résumé
The Laurentian Great Lakes are the largest connected global freshwater system in the world, supplying water to >30M people and supporting significant industrial and food production operations in the greater watershed. This vitally important system is facing multiple agents of change (e.g., invasive species, nutrient run-off, climate change) that are effectively "rewiring" Great Lakes food webs and the ecosystem services they support, including fisheries. The implications of this rewiring remain poorly understood, impacting our ability to make appropriate management decisions in the Great Lakes. Due to these changing ecological paradigms, there is a critical need to expand traditional single species-focused fisheries models into larger food web approaches that are capable of looking at the cascading direct and indirect effects of multiple, significant perturbations, in order to facilitate and support decision-making by relevant agencies.
This partnership between the GLFC, DFO, ECCC, OMNRF and the Center for Ecosystem Management (U Guelph) will address this pressing ecosystem management challenge using a combination of modelling (theory), empirical work, and synthesis to assess how multiple stressors collectively operate to alter whole food web flows, resilience, and function in the Great Lakes. Partners will integrate our findings into practice by adopting new and/or improved prediction models and tools (e.g., user friendly R-based "Shiny" apps) that will support their respective mandates (e.g., nutrient management, setting fish quotas) and to inform policy decisions (e.g. salmonid stocking rates and reduced pelagic forage fish).
This project will serve as a model for Canadian and global ecosystem sustainability research and application, demonstrating the power of empirical synthesis and across-scale food web modelling (i.e., from simple to complex models) in advancing our mechanistic understanding and predictive capabilities within the Great Lakes ecosystems under different management decision scenarios.
Programme
Alliance Grants
Bénéficiaire
Emplacement
Ontario, Canada
Type de bénéficiaire
Academia
Type
Grant
Source
NSERC's Awards Data
Tel que publié
Application id
590557-2023
Name nom
McCann, Kevin KS
Department département
Integrative Biology
Organization id
24
Institution établissement
University of Guelph
Province en
Ontario
Province fr
Ontario
Country en
CANADA
Country fr
CANADA
Fiscal year exercice financier
2024
Competition year année de concours
2023
Award amount
279042
Program id
ALLRP
Program name en
Alliance Grants
Program name fr
Subventions Alliance
Group en
RESEARCH PARTNERSHIPS
Group fr
PARTENARIATS DE RECHERCHE
Committee code
96
Committee name en
RPP Internal Decision Cttee
Committee name fr
Cté de décision interne - PPR
Area of application code
400
Area of application group en
Environment
Area of application group fr
Environnement
Area of application en
Environment
Area of application fr
Environnement
Research subject code
4702
Research subject group en
Evolution and ecology
Research subject group fr
Évolution et écologie
Research subject en
Aquatic ecology and limnology
Research subject fr
Écologie aquatique et limnologie
Field of research list names en
Not available
Field of research list names fr
Non disponible
Socioeconomic objective list names en
Not available
Socioeconomic objective list names fr
Non disponible
Application title
Rewired Great Lakes Food Webs: Implications for Fish Production and Resilience
Keywords
aquatic ecology; bioenergetics; biotracers; climate change; dna barcoding; ecosystem-based fisheries management; ecosystem resilience; food web modeling; great lakes; structural early warning signals
Application summary
The Laurentian Great Lakes are the largest connected global freshwater system in the world, supplying water to >30M people and supporting significant industrial and food production operations in the greater watershed. This vitally important system is facing multiple agents of change (e.g., invasive species, nutrient run-off, climate change) that are effectively "rewiring" Great Lakes food webs and the ecosystem services they support, including fisheries. The implications of this rewiring remain poorly understood, impacting our ability to make appropriate management decisions in the Great Lakes. Due to these changing ecological paradigms, there is a critical need to expand traditional single species-focused fisheries models into larger food web approaches that are capable of looking at the cascading direct and indirect effects of multiple, significant perturbations, in order to facilitate and support decision-making by relevant agencies.
This partnership between the GLFC, DFO, ECCC, OMNRF and the Center for Ecosystem Management (U Guelph) will address this pressing ecosystem management challenge using a combination of modelling (theory), empirical work, and synthesis to assess how multiple stressors collectively operate to alter whole food web flows, resilience, and function in the Great Lakes. Partners will integrate our findings into practice by adopting new and/or improved prediction models and tools (e.g., user friendly R-based "Shiny" apps) that will support their respective mandates (e.g., nutrient management, setting fish quotas) and to inform policy decisions (e.g. salmonid stocking rates and reduced pelagic forage fish).
This project will serve as a model for Canadian and global ecosystem sustainability research and application, demonstrating the power of empirical synthesis and across-scale food web modelling (i.e., from simple to complex models) in advancing our mechanistic understanding and predictive capabilities within the Great Lakes ecosystems under different management decision scenarios.
