Robert Michael Lee McKay is a Canadian microbiologist and presently the executive director and a professor of the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, School of Environment, at the University of Windsor. [1] McKay's research interest center around the physiological ecology of phytoplankton communities in large lakes and oceans. His efforts focus on environmental microbiology including harmful cyanobacterial blooms and blooms of ice-associated algae in the Great Lakes.
McKay completed his B.Sc. at Queen's University in Kingston, ON, Canada in 1986. [2] Subsequently, he completed a Ph.D. at McGill University (Montreal, QC) in 1991. [3] McKay was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, [4] which supported training on marine toxins at the Institute of Marine Science (University of Alaska). This was followed by subsequent training at Brookhaven National Laboratory in their Oceanographic and Atmospheric Sciences Division. In 1997, McKay accepted a faculty position at Bowling Green State University where he rose to the rank of full professor. During this period he held the Ryan Professorship in their Department of Biological Sciences. In 2019, he left BGSU to join the leadership of the University of Windsor. [1]
McKay's research is focused on large lakes with some forays into ocean sciences. He has worked in locations including the Southern Ocean, the Baltic Sea, Lake Balaton (Hungary) and the Laurentian Great Lakes. He studies the microbial ecology of these systems, including harmful cyanobacterial blooms [5] [6] and blooms of ice-associated algae in the Great Lakes, [7] often teaming with his BGSU colleagues George Bullerjahn and Hans Paerl. [8] [9] [10] During the COVID-19 pandemic, his lab group made a transition to wastewater surveillance in support of public health. He is the author of over 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts [11] and serves as an investigator on grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, [12] Canada Foundation for Innovation, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, U.S. National Science Foundation, [13] and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
McKay was named a Humboldt Scholar in 2005 by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. [14] In 2019, his collaborations with a number of researchers earned the John H Martin Award [15] from the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography.
McKay is the head coach of the Lancers curling team at the University of Windsor. [16]
Lake Erie is the fourth-largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and also has the shortest average water residence time. At its deepest point Lake Erie is 210 feet (64 m) deep, making it the only Great Lake whose deepest point is above sea level.
An algal bloom or algae bloom is a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae in freshwater or marine water systems. It is often recognized by the discoloration in the water from the algae's pigments. The term algae encompasses many types of aquatic photosynthetic organisms, both macroscopic multicellular organisms like seaweed and microscopic unicellular organisms like cyanobacteria. Algal bloom commonly refers to the rapid growth of microscopic unicellular algae, not macroscopic algae. An example of a macroscopic algal bloom is a kelp forest.
Microcystins—or cyanoginosins—are a class of toxins produced by certain freshwater cyanobacteria, commonly known as blue-green algae. Over 250 different microcystins have been discovered so far, of which microcystin-LR is the most common. Chemically they are cyclic heptapeptides produced through nonribosomal peptide synthases.
The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada is the major federal agency responsible for funding natural sciences and engineering research in Canada. NSERC directly funds university professors and students as well as Canadian companies to perform research and training. With funding from the Government of Canada, NSERC supports the research of over 41,000 students, trainees and professors at universities and colleges in Canada with an annual budget of CA$1.1 billion in 2015. Its current director is Alejandro Adem.
Florida Bay is the bay located between the southern end of the Florida mainland and the Florida Keys in the United States. It is a large, shallow estuary that while connected to the Gulf of Mexico, has limited exchange of water due to various shallow mudbanks covered with seagrass. The banks separate the bay into basins, each with its own unique physical characteristics.
Cyanotoxins are toxins produced by cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria are found almost everywhere, but particularly in lakes and in the ocean where, under high concentration of phosphorus conditions, they reproduce exponentially to form blooms. Blooming cyanobacteria can produce cyanotoxins in such concentrations that they can poison and even kill animals and humans. Cyanotoxins can also accumulate in other animals such as fish and shellfish, and cause poisonings such as shellfish poisoning.
Lake Mendota is a freshwater eutrophic lake that is the northernmost and largest of the four lakes in Madison, Wisconsin. The lake borders Madison on the north, east, and south, Middleton on the west, Shorewood Hills on the southwest, Maple Bluff on the northeast, and Westport on the northwest. Lake Mendota acquired its present name in 1849 following a proposal by a surveyor named Frank Hudson, who claimed to be familiar with local Native American languages; Lyman C. Draper, the first corresponding secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society, proposed that 'Mendota' could have been a Chippewa word meaning 'large' or 'great.'
The Trophic State Index (TSI) is a classification system designed to rate water bodies based on the amount of biological productivity they sustain. Although the term "trophic index" is commonly applied to lakes, any surface water body may be indexed.
A harmful algal bloom (HAB), or excessive algae growth, is an algal bloom that causes negative impacts to other organisms by production of natural algae-produced toxins, mechanical damage to other organisms, or by other means. HABs are sometimes defined as only those algal blooms that produce toxins, and sometimes as any algal bloom that can result in severely lower oxygen levels in natural waters, killing organisms in marine or fresh waters. Blooms can last from a few days to many months. After the bloom dies, the microbes that decompose the dead algae use up more of the oxygen, generating a "dead zone" which can cause fish die-offs. When these zones cover a large area for an extended period of time, neither fish nor plants are able to survive. Harmful algal blooms in marine environments are often called "red tides".
Bacterioplankton refers to the bacterial component of the plankton that drifts in the water column. The name comes from the Ancient Greek word πλανκτος, meaning "wanderer" or "drifter", and bacterium, a Latin term coined in the 19th century by Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg. They are found in both seawater and freshwater.
Microcystis is a genus of freshwater cyanobacteria that includes the harmful algal bloom-forming Microcystis aeruginosa. Many members of a Microcystis community can produce neurotoxins and hepatotoxins, such as microcystin and cyanopeptolin. Communities are often a mix of toxin-producing and nonproducing isolates.
Microcystis aeruginosa is a species of freshwater cyanobacteria that can form harmful algal blooms of economic and ecological importance. They are the most common toxic cyanobacterial bloom in eutrophic fresh water. Cyanobacteria produce neurotoxins and peptide hepatotoxins, such as microcystin and cyanopeptolin. Microcystis aeruginosa produces numerous congeners of microcystin, with microcystin-LR being the most common. Microcystis blooms have been reported in at least 108 countries, with the production of microcystin noted in at least 79.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute's (MBARI's) Environmental Sample Processor (ESP) is a "lab in a can" designed for autonomous deployment. The ESP—provides on-site collection and analysis of water samples from the subsurface ocean. The instrument is an electromechanical/fluidic system designed to collect discrete water samples, concentrate microorganisms or particles, and automate application of molecular probes which identify microorganisms and their gene products. The ESP also archives samples so that further analyses may be done after the instrument is recovered.
Amina Pollard is an American limnologist and ecologist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
George S. Bullerjahn is an American microbiologist, a former Distinguished Research Professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He is the founding director of the Great Lakes Center for Fresh Waters and Human Health. His specialty is microbial ecology; his research has focused on the health of the Laurentian Great Lakes, particularly the harmful algal bloom-forming populations in Lake Erie since the early 2000s.
Susanna Wood is a New Zealand scientist whose research focuses on understanding, protecting and restoring New Zealand's freshwater environments. One of her particular areas of expertise is the ecology, toxin production, and impacts of toxic freshwater cyanobacteria in lakes and rivers. Wood is active in advocating for the incorporation of DNA-based tools such as metabarcoding, genomics and metagenomics for characterising and understanding aquatic ecosystems and investigating the climate and anthropogenic drivers of water quality change in New Zealand lakes. She has consulted for government departments and regional authorities and co-leads a nationwide programme Lakes380 that aims to obtain an overview of the health of New Zealand's lakes using paleoenvironmental reconstructions. Wood is a senior scientist at the Cawthron Institute. She has represented New Zealand in cycling.
Patricia Marguerite Glibert is marine scientist known for her research on nutrient use by phytoplankton and harmful algal blooms in Chesapeake Bay. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Colleen Beckmann Mouw is an associate professor at the University of Rhode Island known for her work on phytoplankton ecology and increasing retention of women in oceanography.
Hugh Joseph MacIsaac is a Canadian ecologist. He is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Aquatic Invasive Species at the University of Windsor and a professor at the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research.
Hans W. Paerl is a Dutch American limnologist and a Kenan Professor of Marine and Environmental Sciences at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) Institute of Marine Sciences. His research primarily assesses microbially-mediated nutrient cycling, primary production dynamics, and the consequences of human impacts on water quality and sustainability in waters around the world.