ECOLOGICAL MONITORING FOR ASSESSING THE STATE OF THE NEARSHORE AND OPEN WATERS OF THE GREAT LAKES MELANIE A. NEILSON 1* , D. SCOTT PAINTER 1 , GLENN WARREN 2 , RONALD A. HITES 3 , ILORA BASU 3 , D.V. CHIP WESELOH 1 , D. MICHAEL WHITTLE 6 , GAVIN CHRISTIE 4 , RICHARD BARBIERO 5 , MARC TUCHMAN 2 , ORA E. JOHANNSSON 6 , THOMAS F. NALEPA 7 , THOMAS A. EDSALL 8 , GUY FLEISCHER 9 , CHARLES BRONTE 10 , STEPHEN B. SMITH 11 and PAUL C. BAUMANN 12 1 Environment Canada, Environmental Conservation Branch - Ontario Region, Burlington, ON, Canada; 2 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Great Lakes National Program Office, Chicago, Illinois, USA; 3 Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 4 Great Lakes Fishery Commission, Saline, Michigan, USA; 5 DynCorp, I &ET, Alexandria, Virginia, USA; 6 Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Burlington, ON, Canada; 7 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; 8 U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; 9 National Marine Fisheries Service, Seattle, Washington, USA; 10 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA; 11 U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, Reston, Virginia, USA; 12 U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, Columbus, Ohio, USA ( * author for correspondence, e-mail: Melanie.Neilson@ec.gc.ca) Abstract. The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement stipulates that the Governments of Canada and the United States are responsible for restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem. Due to varying mandates and areas of expertise, monitoring to assess progress towards this objective is conducted by a multitude of Canadian and U.S. federal and provincial/state agencies, in cooperation with academia and regional authorities. This paper highlights selected long-term monitoring programs and discusses a number of documented ecological changes that indicate the present state of the open and nearshore waters of the Great Lakes. Keywords: coordination, ecosystem, Great Lakes, indicators, monitoring 1. Introduction The revised Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, as amended by Protocol in 1987, increased the responsibility of the Canadian and U.S. Governments (the ‘Parties’) in terms of achieving progress towards the restoration and maintenance of the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 88: 103–117, 2003. © 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.