Kay. J., Regier, H., 1999. "An Ecosystem Approach to Erie's Ecology" in M. Munawar, T.Edsall, I.F. Munawar, (eds), International Symposium. The State of Lake Erie (SOLE) - Past, Present and Future. A tribute to Drs. Joe Leach & Henry Regier, Backhuys Academic Publishers, Netherlands, pp.511-533

In a 1996 paper we proposed a simplistic model of aquatic systems like the offshore waters of Lake Erie with two alternative states interrelated as in a Riemann-Huguenot catastrophe model. One state or phase is dominated by a benthic association or attractor and the other by a pelagic association. Three centuries ago all of pristine Erie, including inshore and offshore waters as well as linking rivers and tributaries, was apparently dominated by benthic associations. An exception may have occurred occasionally in offshore waters of the Central Basin when unusual but natural meteorological /hydrological phenomena may have predisposed to temporary dominance by a pelagic association. In the mid 20th Century the culturally altered Western and Central Basins apparently flipped into a phase which self-organized to become dominated by an "artificial" pelagic association with exotic species. The code word "eutrophication" is commonly used to designate this transformation, but the latter was due to complex interactions of the effects of numerous cultural stresses, of which excessive loadings of phosphates was one stress. An "oligotrophication" flip back to a phase dominated by a benthic association, now an "artificial" benthic association with exotic species, may have occurred in these two basins late in the 20th Century. Though altered strongly, the Eastern Basin system never flipped fully out of its benthically-dominated state. These notions are developed further here in the form of a case history of Erie's basins with sketches of complex interactions among four selected ecosystemic variables: incident solar irradiation, hydrological phenomena, phosphates and the fish association

Download the paper in Acrobat format (132K)   

  Back to JK publication page