Characterizing Plankton communities in Lake Ontario coastal wetlands along an urban land-use gradient

Abstract

This thesis presents the results of a study on the effect of habitat condition and water quality on plankton communities across an urban land-use gradient in the Lake Ontario coastal wetlands: Frenchman’s Bay, Lynde Marsh, McLaughlin Bay, and Bowmanville Marsh over two years (2018-2019). One of the study wetlands (McLaughlin Bay) was assessed over three years (2017-2019) for its suitability as a candidate wetland for biomanipulation restoration. I found water quality was generally not degraded along the urban gradient as expected. Nutrient rich waters and high chloride concentrations were determined to be important drivers of decreased diversity and higher algal biomass dominated by cyanobacteria. In my assessment of McLaughlin Bay, I found that due to the nutrient- and chloride-rich conditions, the plankton community was dominated by inedible algal communities, and small zooplankton taxa. These results do not support applying biomanipulation as a restoration approach in McLaughlin Bay at this time.