LUQ Newsletter
April 2006

Debora Figueroa-Nieves, William H. McDowell and Jorge Ortiz-Zayas

We will be working on the ecology of urban streams and watersheds as part of Debora's Ph.D. research. The first part of her research will focus on stream metabolism and algal dynamics in various stream reaches. Factors limiting algal biomass, growth rates of benthic algae, and the impact of flow disturbance algae in twenty-five urban streams in the Río Piedras watershed. We will also study stream metabolism and its controls in the Río Piedras, Río Canóvanas and Río Mameyes watersheds as part of LTER IV. We are looking to collaborate on this with other LTER researchers. We anticipate that LINX protocols will be used for the stream metabolism measurements.

The second part of this research will focus on examining the improvements in water quality associated with construction and operation of three waster water treatment plants (WWTP) northeastern Puerto Rico. We will examine the historical data in these WWTP and gather data on the current waste stream in order to analyze the contribution of the WWTP effluent to baseflow and nutrient export in these streams. This will be a pilot project in order to assess the feasibility of conducting additional studies in other parts of Puerto Rico.

The third part of the research will focus on using the SWAT model for the Añasco watershed in order to model and predict future impacts of land use on coastal zones. This will be undertaken as part of the recently funded Caribbean Coastal Scenarios project (Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, and Puerto Rico). Michael McClain, Florida International University, is project PI, and Jorge Ortiz is the Puerto Rico Co-PI.

Nick Brokaw

LTER Coordinating Committee meeting

Nick Brokaw will represent Luquillo LTER at the LTER Coordinating Committee meeting in May at the Cedar Creek LTER site in Minnesota. This meeting is attended by the network-level LTER Executive Committee, representatives from each site, often Henry Gholz (NSF's LTER program officer), and representatives for grad students, IM, and education. We discuss all things related to LTER. If you have any issue you would like me to raise at this meeting, please write or call.

Effie Greathouse

New Publication

Greathouse, E. A., C. M. Pringle, W. H. McDowell, and J. G. Holmquist. 2006. Indirect effects of dams: upstream consequences of migratory fauna extirpation in Puerto Rico. Ecological Applications 16: 339-352 {PDF reprint attached: Greathouseetal2006EcolApps}