The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OH EPA) was awarded an $880,088 three-year Project Grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) under the Geographic Programs - Great Lakes Restoration Initiative federal grant program.
Through this funding, OH EPA will work with Ohio State University and the University of Toledo to study microcystin production rates and cell lysis events related to cyanobacterial blooms in Lake Erie. Specifically, the partners will collect bloom samples from various Lake Erie locations and conduct experiments to analyze how microcystin concentrations occur and investigate whether unbound phycocyanin can serve as an early warning indicator of cell lysis events. Ohio State University will lead experiments on microcystin production, while the University of Toledo will lead the cell lysis experiments. The goal is to better understand harmful algal bloom occurrence in Lake Erie and improve the ability to detect blooms earlier, which will benefit state and local natural resource managers. The award period is March 15, 2023 through March 14, 2026.
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