Progress 12/04/19 to 09/30/20
Outputs Target Audience:During the current reporting cycle, and our first year of this project, our target audience was largely the academic community as we consolidated existing data and research and sought peer feedback. Thus, we targeted regional and international professional societies. We also reached the academic audience more broadly through peer-reviewed publications. We further sought to engage policy-makers, for example, by publishing perspective pieces (e.g. Ames et al. 2020, Consevation Physiology; Sullivan et al. 2020, Science). Changes/Problems:The Covid pandemic and associated university and state restrictions on research and travel have had large, negative impacts on our research program. We rely heavily on field-based sampling with intensive laboratory analyses of samples. Most of our projects lost at least three months of sampling (April, May, June) and others had to be scaled back even after we were able to obtain exemptions to perform critical research. Much of our large-scale ecosystem response work requires either year-round or full growing season sampling. In the case of stream sampling for effects of artificial lighting at night, for example, our dataset is now compromised because we completely missed the spring sampling events. Some lab-based experiments (e.g. visual sensitivity of fish held under different levels of ALAN) were completely cancelled and will not likely happen in the near future as they require intensive animal husbandry and our spaces are too small to accommodate multiple people working at the same time. Other larger-scale, outdoor experiments that required building of infrastructure (e.g. erection of light poles and associated electrical installations in the experiment wetlands at the ORWRP. Additionally, the toll on training opportunities was very high. Hiring freezes and restrictions on students' activities meant that we could not hire the large number of undergraduate student field assistants that we typically do. These work experiences are invaluable are now completely lost for many students. Graduate students had to therefore work shorthanded after major delays in starting field and laboratory work. This will mean significant delays until graduation for many of our graduate students; we note that the stress of this situation for graduate students has been particularly difficult. The uncertainty around funding for additional semesters or years in some cases is of particular concern for both advisors and students. It was also difficult to retain students who had been recruited to start in the program in autumn 2020, again because of uncertainties surrounding funding and research. Each PI on our team worked diligently with our students and postdocs to develop scaled-back research plans, back-up research plans involving existing data or new computing tools, and contingencies for those back-ups. This mentorship alone took an exhausting toll on researchers, not to mention the re-arranging of entire research programs. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Across our three lab groups we are currently training 17 graduate students, 22 undergraduate researchers, and 2 postdoctoral fellows. We were scheduled to attend a number of professional conferences; some of these were cancelled and others were held virtually. Regardless, students participated in the process of developing abstracts and where possible delivering their presentations virtually. This resulted in 14 presentations of our research at society meetings. Some students also took advantage of the down-time from delayed fieldwork to take online courses. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic has made dissemination of our results in traditional formats to target communities difficult. Nevertheless, we presented our work at various regional (e.g. Midwest Fish and Wildlife Conference) and international (e.g. American Fisheries Society, Society for Freshwater Science) meetings that held virtual sessions in lieu of in-person events. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We are currently working within the bounds of Covid-19 restrictions on travel, number of people in a lab at any given time, etc. However, our hope is that within the next reporting cycle this situation will improve so that we can continue planned research activities (Objective 1) and outreach activities. Examples of planned work include continued intensive sampling (water quality, fish and invertebrate communities) of streams in the Ohio River basin to examine the complex dynamics between nutrient inputs and biodiversity; mesocosm studies of species interactions under various stressors (e.g., temperature, turbidity, hypoxia); and, lab-based experiments testing how individual fish respond elevated night lighting and other urban stream stressors (e.g., elevated turbidity and water temperature). Outreach and education efforts (Objective 2) will also resume in the next reporting year as, hopefully, Covid restrictions will lift. Some of our outreach activities, in particular, including the LSAMP aquatic program and Dr. Gray's Water Across the World outreach program linking rural youth in Ohio and Uganda, will re-commence in summer 2021.
Impacts What was accomplished under these goals?
*Every aspect of our research was, and continues to be, affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting university and state restrictions. We detail specific issues in the "Changes/Problems" section below. Objective 1. We have several large, ongoing projects that tackle our primary objective of investigating the influence of multiple human-induced stressors across levels of biological organization. In this reporting year, the first on this project, we focused on consolidating and disseminating existing data and performing critical field and laboratory work. For example: a) Ecosystem-level responses: Drs. Sullivan and Gray continue to study the effects of artificial lighting at night (ALAN) on stream and reservoir systems. After an initial delay of several months due to covid, we made progress on data collection. A complete sample of the fish communities at six bridges crossing urban sections of the Scioto River were made to investigate variation in fish community structure across gradients of ALAN in October 2020. Drs. Pintor and Sullivan are working on a large-scale project in the Ohio River watershed that evaluates the complex interactions of nutrient inputs and stream biodiversity. Dr. Sullivan's group published a paper (Sullivan et al. 2020) on the interactive effects of multiple stressors in urban streams. b) Population- and species-level responses: Dr. Pintor is leading a project that examines the ecological interactions between native and non-native crayfish species across their ranges. Some fieldwork was possible later in summer 2020 when research exemptions were permitted by the university and some related travel restrictions were lifted. Dr. Pintor's group published a paper in Hydrobiologia describing variation in foraging and predator-prey dynamics where the crayfish species overlap (Reisinger et al. 2020). In another study at the level of populations and species, Dr. Gray examined the relationship between management practices in small, privately owned farm ponds with water quality and fish health. This was coupled with a mesocosm experiment at The Shiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park (ORWRP) on OSU's Columbus campus to test the effects of common aquatic dyes on fish growth. Analyses are ongoing and one Masters student is close to finishing their thesis. The completion of the thesis and final report have been disrupted due to Covid. Preliminary results were presented at by the student at the Midwest Fish and Wildlife Annual Meeting in January 2020. c) Individual-level responses: Dr. Gray is leading a project based in Lake Erie that seeks to understand how individual fish respond to severe harmful algal blooms (from excess non-point source nutrient loading) and elevated sedimentary turbidity (from more severe spring storms associated with climate change). In this reporting year her group presented to several audiences on the use of different lure colors by recreational anglers dependent on algal bloom conditions and the use of a phone app to collect data from recreational anglers. Dr. Gray and her students published this work in the Journal of Great Lakes Research (Nieman et al. 2020). Due to Covid restrictions planned field and lab work in 2020 has been postponed on this project; however, we were able to use historical data sets provided by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to look for changes to patterns in angler behavior, walleye catch rates, and harmful algal bloom severity. Analyses are ongoing. Dr. Gray published a paper with several graduate student co-authors that offered a perspective in the journal Conservation Physiology on how we can better integrate physiological responses of individual organisms to population, community, and ecosystem levels of the biological hierarchy (Ames et al. 2020) Objective 2. As this project is only one year old, and due to restrictions and delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic, our outreach activities were minimal in 2020. a) Workshops and symposia: Planned workshops and symposia were cancelled in 2020. For example, Dr. Gray co-organized a symposium entitled, "Sensing the Environment: Molecules to Populations (Sensing the Anthropocene)" for the International Congress on the Biology of Fish 2020 in Montpellier, France. This symposium aims to bring together world experts on the sensory responses of fishes to changing environments and the implications for population-level persistence; however, the conference was cancelled and will now be held in summer 2021. b) Outreach and Education: Most activities were cancelled in 2020. For example, Dr. Sullivan runs a NSF-funded Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Bridge Program in aquatic sciences each summer, providing 20 incoming freshmen per year with experiential learning in aquatics sciences; however, this was cancelled in 2020 due to university- and state-level Covid-19 restrictions.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Czaja, R. Sullivan, S.M.P. Sullivan, and L.M. Pintor. Environmental drivers of food-web structure in Ohio streams. American Fisheries Society Virtual Annual Meeting, Sept. 2020.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Ames, E.M., M.R. Gade, C.M. Marroquin, C.L. Nieman, A. Tutterow, J. Wright, C. Tonra, S.M. Gray. 2020. Striving for population-level conservation: integrating physiology across the biological hierarchy. Conservation Physiology 8(1): coaa019. doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coaa019
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Sullivan, S. M. P., Bohenek, J. R., C�ceres, C., & Pomeroy, L. W. (2020). Multiple urban stressors drive fish-based ecological networks in streams of Columbus, Ohio, USA. Science of The Total Environment, 141970.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Nieman, C.L., S.M. Gray Seeing into The Past: An Investigation of The Relationship Between Visual Morphology and 90 Years of Anthropogenic Turbidity in Emerald Shiner 80th Midwest Fish and Wildlife Conference, Springfield, IL. (Jan. 2020)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Nieman, C.L., T.K. Hrabak, S.M. Gray Can the Fish See the Bait on the Hook: The Relationship between Altered Visual Environments and Lure Color Choice. The American Fisheries Society Virtual Annual Meeting (Sept. 2020).
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Sullivan, S.M.P., Rains, M.C., Rodewald, Buzbee, W.W., and A.D Rosemond. 2020. Distorting science, putting water at risk. Science 369:766-768.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Rieck, L.O., and S.M.P. Sullivan. 2020. Coupled fish-hydrogeomorphic responses to urbanization in streams of Columbus, Ohio, USA. PLoS ONE 15: e0234303.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Goss, C.W., Sullivan, S.M.P., and P.C. Goebel. 2020.. Effects of land-cover transitions on emerging aquatic insects and environmental characteristics of headwater streams in an agricultural catchment. River Research and Applications 36:1097-1108.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Ballash, G., Lee, S., Mollenkopf, D., Mathys, D., Albers, A., Sechrist, E., Feicht, S., Van Belen Rubio, J, Sullivan, S.M.P., Lee, J., and T. Wittum. 2020. Pulsed electric field application reduces carbapenem- and colistin-resistant microbiota and blaKPC spread in urban wastewater. Journal of Environmental Management 265:110529.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Jackson, B.K, and S.M.P. Sullivan. 2020. Influence of wildfire severity on geomorphic features and riparian vegetation of forested streams of the Sierra Nevada, California, USA. International Journal of Wildland Fire 29:611-617.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Mutumi, G.L., Cumming, G.S., Sullivan, S.M.P., Caron, A., and C. C�ceres. 2020. Using a multi-isotope approach to understand waterfowl movement in southern Africa. The Condor: Ornithological Applications 121(4):1-10.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Sullivan, S.M.P., and^D.W.P. Manning. 2019. Aquatic-terrestrial linkages as complex systems: insights and advances from network models. Freshwater Science 38(4):936-945.
- Type:
Book Chapters
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Sullivan, S.M.P. and D.A. Cristol. 2020. Ecological networks as a framework for understanding and predicting contaminant movement across the land-water interface. Pages 299-342 in Contaminants and ecological subsidies: the land-water interface, Kraus, J.M., Waters, D.M., and M.A. Mills eds). SpringerNature, Switzerland.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Bohenek, J., Karr, C., Harrison, S., Sullivan, S.M.P., and S. Gray. Artificial light at night potentially shifts fish-assemblage composition, but not body size, in small urban streams. American Fisheries Society Virtual Annual Meeting, Sept. 2020.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Sanchez, N., C�ceres, C., and S.M.P. Sullivan. Multiple stressors influence algal communities and microcystin production in riverine systems of the upper Ohio River basin. Summer of Science Society for Freshwater Science Virtual Poster Session, June 2020.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Diesburg, K.M., Sullivan, S.M.P., and D.W.P. Manning. Mechanisms and more: riparian biological invasions alter community structure and ecosystem function in stream-riparian ecosystems. Summer of Science Society for Freshwater Science Virtual Poster Session, June 2020.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Bush, B., Sullivan, S.M.P., and B. Zimmerman. Impacts of a native fish reintroduction on resident fish assemblages. Summer of Science Society for Freshwater Science Virtual Poster Session, June 2020.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Czaja, R.A., Pintor, L.M., and S.M.P. Sullivan. Environmental drivers of intraspecific trait variation in crayfish. Summer of Science Society for Freshwater Science Virtual Poster Session, June 2020.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Sullivan, S.M.P. 2019. The Ties that Bind: Connectivity and Aquatic-Terrestrial Linkages in Watershed and Coastal Ecosystems. Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL. Nov. 2019. (Invited presentation)
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Reisinger, L.S., M.G. Glon** & L.M. Pintor. 2019. Divergence in foraging and predator avoidance across native and non-native populations of crayfish. Hydrobiologia, 847: 803818.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Williams*, B., T. Atkinson, R. Oldham, T. Hrabak, L.M. Pintor, S.M. Gray. (2019) Linking vision, color signals, and mate choice in an African cichlid. Sensorium Conference. Urbana, IL. United States.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Berg*, EA, LM Pintor (2019) The effect of hydrological restoration on nutrient concentrations and macroinvertebrate communities in Lake Erie coastal wetlands. Midwest Fish & Wildlife Conference, Invited Special Session, Cleveland, Ohio. United States.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Meyer, SC**, CA Johnson*, LM Pintor (2019) Giving Up Density as an approach to identify a difference in foraging behavior between native and invasive crayfish species. Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology. Tampa, Florida. United States.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Rebecca Czaja, Lauren Pintor, Mazeika Sullivan. 2020 Aquatic Insect Trait Variation and Land Use in Ohio Streams. Entomological Society of American Virtual Meeting. Virtual.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Rebecca Czaja, Lauren Pintor, Mazeika Sullivan. 2020 Environmental Drivers of Food Web Structure in Ohio Streams. American Fisheries Society Virtual Meeting. Virtual.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Rebecca Czaja, Lauren Pintor, Mazeika Sullivan. 2020 Environmental Drivers of Intraspecific Trait Variation in Crayfish. Society for Freshwater Science Summer of Science. Virtual.
|