Long-term ecosystem studies in the Bay of Quinte, Lake Ontario, 1972–2008: A prospectus Charles K. Minns, 1,2,∗ Mohiuddin Munawar, 1 Marten A. Koops, 1 and E. Scott Millard 1 1 Great Lakes Laboratory of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, P.O. Box 5050, 867 Lakeshore Road, Burlington, ON, L7R 4A6 2 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Willcocks St., Toronto, ON M5S 3B2 ∗ Corresponding author. ken@minns.ca Project Quinte can best be described as a long-term ecosystem study of the Bay of Quinte, Lake Ontario. Starting in 1972, Project Quinte was initially established to study the whole ecosystem effects of controlling phosphorus loadings in a eutrophic ecosystem. Since then, the Bay of Quinte ecosystem has experienced reduced nutrient loads, climatic events that changed the dominance of fish species, multiple invasions by non-native species, a resurgence of macrophytes, and increasing annual temperatures. Through this, the Bay of Quinte has gone from a study site to a Great Lakes Area of Concern to now the prospect of being delisted. The data that Project Quinte has assembled since its inception represents a unique opportunity to examine how ecosystems function, and the papers presented in this special issue provide evidence of the scientific and management benefits of careful long-term monitoring of ecosystem structures and processes. Keywords: eutrophication, recovery, monitoring, science, sustainability Introduction Janzen (2009) described the sites of long-term ecological and ecosystem studies as “‘listening places’—places where we press our ears to the earth and strain to hear its pulse.” The Bay of Quinte is one of those places though we mainly ‘listen’ by dipping our nets, probes and sample bottles. This prospectus provides some historical context and an overview of the two sets of papers, appearing in this issue and a later issue of AEHM, which document our growing, but still incomplete, understanding of the Bay of Quinte (hereafter Quinte) ecosystem. Supplementary files for this article are available at http://www. aehms.org/Journal/14 1 Minns.Appendix.html A Brief History of Project Quinte By the late 1960s the problem of freshwater eu- trophication was evident throughout the developed world and there was a consensus that excess phos- phorus in untreated sewage, human waste and laun- dry detergents, was the primary cause (cf Schindler and Vallentyne, 2008: a recent update of Jack Val- lentyne’s 1974 book telling the whole story). Ef- forts to upgrade sewage treatment plants (STPs) had begun around the Great Lakes. A pilot P-control project on Gravenhurst Bay in Lake Muskoka, On- tario (Michalski et al., 1975) likely provided the early thinking for Project Quinte. Murray John- son, then at the Ontario Water Resources Commis- sion (OWRC) and later with Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and 3 Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management, 14(1):3–8, 2011. Copyright C  2011 AEHMS. ISSN: 1463-4988 print / 1539-4077 online DOI: 10.1080/14634988.2011.551750 Downloaded By: [Fisheries & Oceans Canada] At: 21:48 10 March 2011