Clarkson group studying human effects on St. Lawrence River microorganisms

Aug. 3—POTSDAM — A team of Clarkson University graduate students is studying the DNA of microorganisms in the St. Lawrence River to see how they've been impacted by human activity.

Graduate students Kelsey M. Cullen, of Alexandria Bay, Maria G. Pelusi, of Ogdensburg, and Austin G. Marshall, of Clayton, are onboard the research vessel Lampsilis, which comes from the University of Quebec at Three Rivers.

Clarkson biology professor Michael R. Twiss is one of the project investigators. He says this is the first-ever study of St. Lawrence River microorganisms to go into the level of DNA analysis they're doing.

"It's a globally significant river. It's impacted by human activity from Lake Ontario down to Quebec City, where it enters into the salt water," he said. "We want to see how the river changes as it flows downstream from Lake Ontario to essentially the Atlantic Ocean."

"It provides us with some information about how the community, the population changes," he added. "Essentially, we call that the microbiome. You've got a microbiome in your gut. The same thing happens in nature. In this case it's the river."

Although it will likely be months before they can analyze all the data and publish their findings, one possible outcome, Mr. Twiss said, is they could detect signs of a serious ecological problem. If that were to happen, their research would end up going to international authorities so they can take action.

"This is primarily a fundamental investigation. So we suspect there's changes that occur as we go downstream. We don't know what they are yet," Mr. Twiss said.

For example, he said, "if there's some early warning we need to announce."

"It would be a matter of letting the water quality board of the International Joint Commission know about that. It's their responsibility to inform the International Joint Commission, who would then talk to (U.S. and Canadian authorities) to make them aware of the issue."

The boat itself is designed to automatically collect and analyze water samples, and the researchers will go over the data after the journey is complete. The three students are taking surface water samples.

On Tuesday morning, they were taking samples from a sewage outflow near Montreal, where the city dumped 2 billion gallons of raw sewage into the river in 2015.

He said although that incident was widely published, major cities along the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River and beyond dump sewage into rivers, lakes and oceans.

"Those kinds of things happen all across the Great Lakes. Every time there's a rainstorm, Toronto has combined sewer overflow, Buffalo has combined sewer overflow, Detroit, Cleveland, etc.," Mr. Twiss said.

The research vessel Lampsilis sails under the Canadian flag. Mr. Twiss says the two-nation effort "shows really good international collaboration."

"This is a Canadian vessel, and the Quebec government is actually providing the funds for it. It's very costly. We've been invited to contribute, so that's a good thing," he said.

"One thing we have to remember is there's such things as trans-boundary pollution. Just because we're crossing the border, doesn't mean the water changes," Mr. Twiss said. "It's nice to contribute back to that and help them understand that issue."