Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID VT_2023_Eggleston

Lake Champlain interannual winter microbial dynamics

Institute: Vermont
Year Established: 2023 Start Date: 2023-09-01 End Date: 2024-08-31
Total Federal Funds: $29,763 Total Non-Federal Funds: $29,923

Principal Investigators: Erin Eggleston

Project Summary: Lake Champlain experiences increasingly warm and ice-free winter conditions, but under-ice and winter microbial dynamics studies are substantially limited. Changing ice coverage on temperate lakes is predicted to impact timing of lake mixing and stratification, with important implications for timing and severity of spring and summer phytoplankton bloom events. Ongoing VT Water Center-funded analysis of Landsat imagery, discrete water sampling to measure microbial community diversity, and physicochemical limnological data are helping identify variables that help predict spring and summer bloom dynamics. This project will will allow for increased temporal sampling over winter months, and this larger sampling size and interannual dataset will allow for modeling key parameters of interest, comparing interannual winter microbial communities and increasing understanding of Lake Champlain winter dynamics. Inclusion of winter biological and physicochemical data will inform management decisions for stakeholders, including relevance to summer cyanobacterial blooms.