Principal Investigator: Jeremy Collie (GSO URI), Austin Humphries (GSO URI, FAVS), Conor McManus (RIDEM DMF), Candace Oviatt (GSO URI)

Funding Source: Rhode Island Sea Grant

This project aims to improve our understanding of the change in benthic communities of Narragansett Bay over time relative to nutrient reduction programs, changing water temperatures, and their synergistic effects. The present knowledge base is insufficient to measure and project the combined effects of nutrient reduction and temperature increases on the benthic communities of Narragansett Bay. Estimates of the biomass and production of all taxa are needed to assess the changes in benthic community structure and the resulting effects on the rest of the Narragansett Bay food web. The project has four main objective: to assess decadal changes in benthic community structure and biomass of Narragansett Bay in relation to temperature change, nutrient inputs, and water quality; to compare the abundance and species composition of benthic infauna and epifauna before and after the 50% decrease in nutrient input, which occurred from 2005 to 2013; to sample the entire benthic community (epifaunal and infaunal invertebrates and demersal fishes) along a north-south gradient with a combination of sampling gears, and; to estimate benthic production along this transect for input to food-web models.