Cooperative Agreement for CESU-affiliated Partner of Californian Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU)

The USGS is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner to collect data for developing a revised framework to predict mercury risk to managed freshwater ecosystems that account for both the biogeochemistry and microbiology. An emphasis of this research is placed on field measurements of two characteristic freshwater environments: arid-land reservoirs and subtropical wetlands. In these freshwater environments, mercury biomagnification in aquatic foodwebs is prevalent and water quality remains one of the biggest issues facing management and/or restoration efforts regarding mercury. A significant challenge to both scientists and resource managers is identifying how internal drivers (e.g., hydrologic and biochemical changes resulting from management or restoration efforts) and external drivers (e.g., climate change) influence the biogeochemical processes that result in the formation of methylmercury, a critical environmental transformation that precedes the exposure of organisms to mercury.