Alexander Joseph ReisingerUniversity of Florida | UF · Department of Soil and Water Science
Alexander Joseph Reisinger
Ph.D.
About
43
Publications
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746
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
August 2017 - December 2017
July 2010 - May 2015
August 2008 - July 2010
Publications
Publications (43)
Stormwater wet detention ponds (hereafter “detention ponds”) are implemented to mitigate impacts of urban stormwater runoff on downstream waterbodies. We evaluated the effectiveness of detention ponds in providing this protection by quantifying hydrological, chemical, and biological responses in urban depressional wetlands with and without detentio...
Salinization and eutrophication are nearly ubiquitous in watersheds with human activity. Despite the known impacts of the freshwater salinization syndrome (FSS) to organisms, we demonstrate a pronounced knowledge gap on how FSS alters wetland biogeochemistry. Most experiments assessing FSS and biogeochemistry pertain to coastal saltwater intrusion....
Despite the assumption that residential fertilizer ordinances improve regional water quality, their impacts across space and time largely remain unknown. Here, we analyze changes in water quality of lakes throughout the State of Florida from 1987 to 2018, comparing trends in water quality parameters before and after implementation of county‐wide fe...
Designers, builders, and managers of sustainable urban areas must consider location and proximity of conserved land, built infrastructure, and designed urban ecosystems such as stormwater ponds and ornamental gardens. This publication introduces four key spatial considerations and discusses their implications for conservation of native plants and a...
Stormwater ponds are engineered ecosystems designed for flood control and sediment retention in urban watersheds. They are the most commonly used stormwater control measure in the USA, but their biogeochemical processes and impacts are often overlooked. Here, we assessed the potential impact of stormwater ponds on regional carbon cycling by couplin...
Nitrogen (N) removal from stormwater runoff prior to its export to sensitive downstream water bodies is a common goal for urban stormwater ponds (SWPs). Denitrification removes nitrate (NO3⁻) from stormwater runoff by conversion to di-nitrogen gas (N2), permanently removing reactive N from the ecosystem. Typically, N removal in SWPs is quantified v...
Wastewater reclamation facilities are known sources of emerging contaminants associated with human health and sanitation. This study evaluated the contribution of trace organic contaminants to a previously unmonitored river by water resource reclamation facilities. Six sampling events were conducted on the Reedy River in South Carolina. Sampling lo...
Designed ecosystems (e.g., gardens or engineered ponds) are increasingly common components of urban landscapes and contribute valuable ecosystem services. However, management of designed ecosystems is typically vegetation-centric and often does not consider associated fauna. Urban ponds typify this relationship as their vegetation is managed to imp...
Lakes process both terrestrial and aquatic organic matter, and the relative contribution from each source is often measured via ecosystem metabolism and terrestrial resource use in the food web (i.e., consumer allochthony). Yet, ecosystem metabolism and consumer allochthony are rarely considered together, despite possible interactions and potential...
Abstract Pharmaceuticals are ubiquitous in aquatic environments, yet little is known regarding their impacts on ecological processes. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are frequently prescribed human antidepressants and have been shown to alter crayfish behavior. These behavioral alterations are particularly relevant as crayfish play...
Urbanization increases stormwater runoff into streams, resulting in channel erosion, and increases in sediment and nutrient delivery to receiving water bodies. Stream restoration is widely used as a Best Management Practice to stabilize banks and reduce sediment and nutrient loads. While most instream nutrient retention measurements are often limit...
Lotic and lentic ecosystems are traditionally viewed as dominated by either benthic or water column processes. However, mid-sized rivers represent a transition zone where both benthic and water column processes may both contribute substantially to ecosystem dynamics. Ecosystem processes such as gross primary production (GPP), ecosystem respiration...
Large storage dams have widely documented impacts on downstream aquatic environments, but hydroelectric dams with little or no capacity for storage of water inflows (i.e., run-of-river) have received less attention. Two of the world's largest run-of-river hydropower dams (Jirau and Santo Antônio, Brazil) are located on the Madeira River, the larges...
Run-of-river dams are often considered to have lower environmental impacts than storage dams due to their smaller reservoirs and low potential for flow alteration. However, this has been questioned for projects recently built on large rivers around the world. Two of the world’s largest run-of-river dams—Santo Antônio and Jirau—were recently constru...
Designed ecosystems are built as part of ongoing urban expansion, providing a suite of valued ecosystem services. However, these new ecosystems could also promote disservices by facilitating the colonization and spread of invasive species. We conduct the first assessment of the quantity and invasion of an overlooked designed ecosystem: stormwater p...
In low‐gradient, macrophyte‐rich rivers, we expect that the significant change in macrophyte biomass among seasons will strongly influence both biological activity and hydraulic conditions resulting in significant effects on nutrient dynamics. Understanding seasonal variation will improve modelling of nutrient transport in river networks, including...
Coastal wetlands of the Laurentian Great Lakes are vital habitats for biota of ecological and economic importance. These habitats are susceptible to water quality impairments driven by runoff from the landscape due to their location along the shoreline. Monitoring of the overall status of biotic and abiotic conditions of coastal wetlands within the...
The faucet snail (Bithynia tentaculata) was introduced to the Great Lakes region in the late 1800s. Faucet snails alter native community dynamics and are an intermediate host for multiple trematode parasites that can be lethal to waterfowl when the snails are consumed. Although faucet snails have been established in the Great Lakes for over a centu...
The continually increasing global population residing in urban landscapes impacts numerous ecosystem functions and services provided by urban streams. Urban stream restoration is often employed to offset these impacts and conserve or enhance the various functions and services these streams provide. Despite the assumption that "if you build it, [the...
Fluoxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), is frequently detected in surface waters globally, yet the effects of SSRIs on ecological processes at environmentally realistic concentrations are not currently known. We used a controlled, replicated artificial stream experiment to expose biofilm, algal and stream insect communities to...
In the face of mosquito-borne disease outbreaks, effective mosquito control is a primary goal for public health. Insect repellents, containing active compounds such as DEET and picaridin, are a first defence against biting insects. Owing to widespread use and incomplete sewage treatment, these compounds are frequently detected in surface waters, bu...
The steadily rising global urban population has placed substantial strain on urban water quality, and this strain is projected to increase for the foreseeable future. Considerable attention has been given to the hydrological and physico‐chemical effects of urbanization on stream ecosystems. However, due to the relative infancy of the field of urban...
Residues of pharmaceuticals are increasingly detected in surface waters throughout the world. In four streams in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, we detected analgesics, stimulants, antihistamines, and antibiotics using passive organic samplers. We exposed biofilm communities in these streams to the common drugs caffeine, cimetidine, ciprofloxacin, and di...
In this chapter, we describe nutrient limitation in stream ecosystems, the problems associated with elevated nutrient loading caused by human activities in the watershed, and how streams process and transform nutrients prior to downstream export. We provide a basic method for quantifying nutrient limitation of stream biofilms using nutrient diffusi...
Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are ubiquitous in freshwater ecosystems worldwide and are recognized as contaminants of concern. Currently, contaminants of concern are classified for their persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity (PBT criteria). PPCPs are not classified as persistent organic pollutants (POPs), although some PPC...
Coastal wetlands in the Laurentian Great Lakes are critical habitats for supporting fish diversity and abundance within the basin. Insight into the coupling of biodiversity patterns with habitat conditions may elucidate mechanisms shaping diverse communities. Within coastal wetlands, water depth as well as fluctuations in lake-wide water levels ove...
Along the river network, water, sediment, and nutrients are transported, cycled, and altered by coupled hydrological and biogeochemical processes. Our current understanding of the rates and processes controlling the cycling and removal of dissolved inorganic nutrients in river networks is limited due to a lack of empirical measurements in large, (n...
Headwater streams remove, transform, and store inorganic nitrogen (N) delivered from surrounding watersheds, but excessive N inputs from human activity can saturate removal capacity. Most research has focused on quantifying N removal from the water column over short periods and in individual reaches, and these ecosystem-scale measurements suggest t...
Urban streams are exposed to multiple different stressors on a regular basis, with increased hydrological flashiness representing a common urban stream stressor. Stream metabolism, the coupled ecosystem functions of gross primary production (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (ER), controls numerous other ecosystem functions and integrates multiple pro...
Background: Mesocosm experiments have become increasingly popular in climate change research as they bridge the gap between small-scale, less realistic, microcosm experiments, and large-scale, more complex, natural systems. Characteristics of aquatic mesocosm designs (e.g., mesocosm volume, study duration, and replication) vary widely, potentially...
Nitrogen (N) pollution of freshwater, estuarine, and marine ecosystems is widespread and has numerous environmental and economic impacts. A portion of this excess N comes from urban watersheds comprised of natural and engineered ecosystems which can alter downstream N export. Studies of urban N cycling have focused on either specific ecosystems or...
Riverine biogeochemical processes are understudied relative to headwaters, and reach-scale processes in rivers reflect both the water column and sediment. Denitrification in streams is difficult to measure, and is often assumed to occur only in sediment, but the water column is potentially important in rivers. Dissolved nitrogen (N) gas flux (as di...
Benthic biofilms have multiple functions in stream and river ecosystems, and their growth and productivity are often limited by dissolved inorganic nutrient availability, particularly N or P. We deployed nutrient diffusing substrata (NDS) in 5 rivers in each of 3 regions: the Mountain West, the Arid West, and the Midwest, to assess regional and sea...
Nutrient transformation processes such as assimilation, dissimilatory transformation, and sorption to sediments are prevalent in benthic zones of headwater streams, but may also occur in the water column. The river continuum concept (RCC) predicts that water column processes become increasingly important with increasing stream size. We predicted th...
Nutrient pollution of aquatic ecosystems is a growing concern as the influence of human activities continues to increase on the landscape. Headwater streams have long been shown to process nutrients via the biofilm community growing on the bottom of streams. The growth and activity of these biofilms is often limited by the availability of nitrogen...
Expansion of woody vegetation into areas that were historically grass-dominated is a significant contemporary threat to grasslands, including native tallgrass prairie ecosystems of the Midwestern United States. In tallgrass prairie, much of this woody expansion is concentrated in riparian zones with potential impacts on biogeochemical processes the...
1. Adult Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) transport marine nutrients to fresh waters and disturb sediments during spawning. The relative importance of nutrient fertilisation and benthic disturbance by salmon spawners can be modulated by environmental conditions (e.g. biological, chemical and physical conditions in the catchment, including human l...
Anthropogenic N loadings and perturbations of macroconsumer communities impair ecological and economic services provided by streams. Organisms are adapted to natural disturbances, such as flooding and desiccation, but how anthropogenic and natural disturbances interact is poorly understood. We used large outdoor mesocosms to study the effect of Cam...
Human-induced stressors such as increased nitrogen (N) loadings, altered watershed land-use, and biodiversity losses are a few of the numerous threats to aquatic systems. Prairie streams experience natural disturbances, such as flooding and desiccation, which may alter responses to anthropogenic stressors. Denitrification, the dissimilatory reducti...
Projects
Projects (2)
The goal of this research is to measure how biofilms at different locations along an urban stream respond to varying concentrations of ciprofloxacin. More specifically, we are interested in biofilm resistance based on location (above and below a waste water treatment plant).
Mesocosms have become progressively popular in climate change research as they bridge the gap between the smaller-scale, less realistic, microcosm experiments, and the large-scale, more complex, natural systems. Aquatic mesocosm vary widely in their characteristics, e.g., size (volume), duration, settings, design, type of measured response – potentially affecting the magnitude and direction of effect sizes. In this global systematic review we aim at identifying the type, direction and strength of climate change effects derived by warming on species and communities in aquatic mesocosm experiments, and investigate the context-dependency of observed effects on several a-priori determined moderators (ecological and methodological). Our conclusions will be summarized in two parts: recommendations for aquatic scientists wishing to plan mesocosm experiments, and guidelines for experimental interpretation by the scientists, policymakers, and general public.
