US Fish and Wildlife Service Grant: 2011 Spatial and Seasonal Marine Water Entry into Selawik NWR Freshwater Ecosystems

PURPOSE:
The purpose of this agreement is to provide support and assistance to Michigan Technical University in investigating the mechanisms by which climate change may be affecting the coastal and freshwater ecosystems associated with the Selawik River drainage and acquiring baseline water quality information.

OBJECTIVES: This agreement provides support and assistance to Michigan Technical University for 2011 spring/summer sampling on the Selawik National Wildlife Refuge. Sampling will be conducted by Michigan Technical University and the Selawik National Wildlife Refuge. Sampling will be conducted in within the refuge boundaries and adjacent waters (Selawik Lake), northwest Alaska. Specific project objectives are as follows:
� Quantify seasonal intrusion of brackish and saltwater in the lower Selawik River and model possible hydrologic linkages.
� Investigate how changes due to melting permafrost along with water flow may be affecting primary production in this ecosystem by quantifying organic and inorganic water chemistry.
� Provide comprehensive water quality data through investigation of primary production and phytoplankton biomass
� Quantify the timing and extent of low elevation pond and lake water loss that is occurring.

BACKGROUND

Higher latitude freshwater ecosystems are subjected to a spectrum of environmental stressors many now directly or indirectly linked to past and present human activity. Climate warming, has resulted in marked shifts in the biological communities of many Arctic lakes and ponds. Major drivers include changes in the amount and duration of snow and ice cover, precipitation distribution especially declines in winter precipitation, and in turn the frequency and magnitude of stream and river flooding. Other climate-related shifts include altered evaporation to precipitation ratios, and change in the quality and quantity of freshwater inputs to lakes and the marine ecosystem due to altered basin hydrology. The depletion of stratospheric ozone over the north, together with the clarity of many Arctic lakes, renders them especially susceptible to damage from ultraviolet radiation. The long-range transport of atmospheric pollutants to higher latitudes has been known for decades. And increasingly there is the matter of change in land use in potentially sensitive, relatively simple ecosystems. Most, if not all, of the above factors interact with each other. Recent research on these factors reveals unexpected feedbacks both positive and negative from such interactions. Feedbacks can accelerate further change. One example would be the increase in trace gas efflux to the atmosphere from decomposition of exposed organic-rich lake and pond substrates with lowered water levels. Another is the positive feedback to regional warming; both air and water, as a result of declines in aquatic ice cover and terrestrial snow cover extent and duration.

The Selawik watershed and surrounding area has much qualitative data defining its character, but little quantitative data regarding ecosystem response to the spectrum of current stressors. This proposed study will examine a number of linked processes which taken together could indicate what direction change is occurring. However, while this study in itself can show correlation among factors and indicators of change, it will not likely determine cause-effect owing largely to its short-term nature and the absence of previous data.

REASON FOR SINGLE SOURCE:

(1) Unique Qualifications � The applicant is uniquely qualified to perform the activity based upon a variety of demonstrable factors such as their long term and ongoing work on an adjacent watershed in northwest Alaska. This project is an expansion of that work. The Principal Investigator, a senior USGS scientist with expertise in terrestrial ecologist, is volunteering his time and expertise at no cost to the project and is soliciting the cost-sharing ability of the University. Michigan Technical University meets other criteria which preclude competition for this cooperative agreement, including property ownership in the form of sampling equipment, technical expertise, and laboratory and field staff support capacity.