Harmonizing Aquatic Ecosystems

Whether it’s Wildlife conservation, rivers, streams or the myriad species that call them home—yellow perch, pickerelweed, smallmouth bass and microscopic plankton—Eugene Braig wants to make sure they are all in tune. That’s his passion as aquatic ecosystems program director at The Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

The Relationship Between Aquatic and Terrestrial Ecosystems

For him, it’s all about a harmony that starts with the plants and extends to the fish and everything in between. In the world of aquariums, he applies this philosophy to aquascape design, the art of arranging aquatic plants and decorative elements to create a visually appealing underwater landscape. Using rocks like Seiryu stone and driftwood pieces like Malaysian driftwood, he can create structures that look like waterfalls, cliffs or mountains, as well as hiding spots for the tank’s inhabitants.

The derivation of water quality guidelines requires extensive toxicity testing of many different taxonomic groups of species in both the aquatic and sediment environments. This makes it highly desirable that there be defensible and globally applicable methods to ensure consistency in these guidelines. This can be achieved by harmonizing the way ecotoxicity impacts are characterized in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). The current model, USEtox, is widely accepted as a suitable starting point to achieve this. In order to fully address the concerns of stakeholders, however, the model needs to be extended to include marine sediment and water ecosystems as well. This can be achieved by extending the ecotoxicity characterization approach to these compartments by including a set of models that support the evaluation of fate, exposure and effects in marine, sediment and groundwater ecosystems.