This award supplements a grant supported by an NSF/EPA Award on Water and Watersheds. The research, performed in collaboration with Winfried Lampert of the Max- Planck-Institut for Limnology, seeks to learn how individual zooplankton species respond to the major changes in their algal resources that occur during cultural eutrophication.. The feeding and fitness responses of animals from before and after periods of eutrophication will be studied. Phenotypic and genetic variation in zooplankton populations will be documented using animals hatched from long-lived diapausing eggs collected from lake sediments of different ages. The research will lead to substantially enhanced understanding of how natural populations and communities of freshwater herbivores respond to anthropogenic environmental change.
