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Title	Operation Baseline Project 2B: Phytoplankton, CSU Maritime Academy
Lead	California State University Maritime Academy
Description	Planned upgrades to the Sacramento Regional wastewater treatment plant (Regional San) between 2019 and 2021 will reduce total nitrogen inputs by >60% and shift the dominant form of nitrogen entering the Delta from ammonium (NH4) to nitrate (NO3). These changes will affect the Delta in ways unforeseeable with existing knowledge. The focus of this project is to quantify the links between wastewater nitrogen and phytoplankton standing stock, community composition and carbon and nitrogen production. Working in collaboration with the other two Operation Baseline projects, we will: 1. validate in situ monitoring approaches for phytoplankton standing stock and community composition (i.e. using size-fractionated chlorophyll-a and diagnostic phytopigments via HPLC) and 2. provide estimates of ambient and nitrogen-saturated phytoplankton NH4 and NO3 uptake rates as well as C uptake. Phytoplankton N and C uptake rates will be made along spatial gradients in nitrogen and water residence time (Task 1) and in three wetland habitats with varying influence from wastewater nitrogen (Task 3). Together with the other proposals, this project will provide much needed baseline characterization of nutrient processes in the Delta prior to Regional San upgrades.
Science topics	Algae, Floating aquatic vegetation, Food webs, Nitrogen / ammonia, Open water, Other discharge contaminants, Phytoplankton, Submerged aquatic vegetation, Wastewater discharge, Water operations / exports, Wetlands, Zooplankton
Updated	December 14, 2022

Title	Operation Baseline Project 2C: Zooplankton, Romberg Tiburon Center, SFSU
Lead	San Francisco State University [SFSU]
Description	This project will examine responses of zooplankton (copepods) to variations in the foodweb attributable to nutrient sources. At each wetland site we will determine spatial abundance patterns and rates of reproduction, growth, and mortality. These will be integrated with information on phytoplankton and physical dynamics to determine how population dynamics responds to nutrient conditions. Stable isotopes will be used to assess nutrient source contributions to growth.
Science topics	Algae, Floating aquatic vegetation, Food webs, Nitrogen / ammonia, Open water, Other discharge contaminants, Phytoplankton, Submerged aquatic vegetation, Wastewater discharge, Water operations / exports, Wetlands, Zooplankton
Updated	December 14, 2022

Title	Operation Baseline Project 1: Conceptual Framework
Lead	Delta Stewardship Council
Description	A multidisciplinary team will develop a thorough conceptual model that will describe current conditions and consider changes from the WWTP upgrade. The model will be used to identify the highest priority science questions and investigations to pursue before, during, and after the plant upgrade.
Science topics	Algae, Floating aquatic vegetation, Food webs, Nitrogen / ammonia, Open water, Other discharge contaminants, Phytoplankton, Submerged aquatic vegetation, Wastewater discharge, Water operations / exports, Wetlands, Zooplankton
Updated	December 14, 2022

Title	Operation Baseline Project 2A1: USGS Pilot Studies
Lead	U.S. Geological Survey [USGS]
Description	Two pilot studies were funded to establish a baseline in open water and shallow wetland habitats prior to the WWTP upgrade. Study 1: Nutrient concentrations, transformation rates, and links to the foodweb. Study 2: Method to improve monitoring using fixed stations coupled with high-speed boat measurements
Science topics	Algae, Floating aquatic vegetation, Food webs, Nitrogen / ammonia, Open water, Other discharge contaminants, Phytoplankton, Submerged aquatic vegetation, Wastewater discharge, Water operations / exports, Wetlands, Zooplankton
Updated	December 14, 2022

Title	Operation Baseline Project 2A2: USGS Pilot Studies - Isotopes
Lead	U.S. Geological Survey [USGS]
Description	Evaluate the usefulness of stable isotopes to trace nutrients form effluent water
Science topics	Algae, Floating aquatic vegetation, Food webs, Nitrogen / ammonia, Open water, Other discharge contaminants, Phytoplankton, Submerged aquatic vegetation, Wastewater discharge, Water operations / exports, Wetlands, Zooplankton
Updated	December 14, 2022

Title	Using Flowcam Technology to Measure High Frequency Spatial and Temporal Variation in Phytoplankton and Zooplankton Species Composition and Develop State-of-the-Art Plankton Monitoring
Lead	California Department of Water Resource [DWR]
Description	The purpose of this project is to use the new imaging-in-flow instrument FlowCAM to rapidly and automatically identify, enumerate and estimate biomass for in situ and laboratory phytoplankton and zooplankton species composition samples in the SF Estuary.
Science topics	Phytoplankton, Zooplankton
Updated	April 29, 2022

Title	Nutritional Quality of Zooplankton as Prey for Fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Dalta
Lead	University of California - Davis [UC Davis]
Description	Primary consumers (zooplankton) are a critical trophic link for energy transfer to upper trophic levels and a key food source for threatened and endangered fish species in the Delta. The zooplankton community was shaped by large spatial and temporal changes in both abundances and species composition that affected quantity of zooplankton carbon. It is also expected that taxonomic shifts affected quality of zooplankton carbon for fish due to altering biomass transfer at the base of the food web that can profoundly influence nutritional quality and population dynamics at higher trophic levels. Yet the biochemical composition of plankton remains largely unstudied in this system despite the fact that the importance of zooplankton nutritional quality for fish is one potential major component for the long-term decline and more recent collapse of pelagic fish species. The proposed research aims to measure essential nutritional status (stoichiometry, fatty acids, sterols) for zooplankton taxa and will calculate food-quality indices for fish. On the basis of nutritional plankton and biomass values, spatial patterns as well as long-term and recent changes in plankton quality associated with compositional shifts will be estimated. We propose that through integrating plankton food-quality into the management and restoration plan for the Delta, the dynamics of the ecosystem can be viewed from a new perspective that has key implications for understanding the decline in pelagic organisms.
Science topics	Zooplankton
Updated	April 29, 2022

Title	Examining the relationship between Longfin Smelt, zooplankton, and flow in the San Francisco Bay Delta
Lead	University of California - Berkeley [UC Berkeley]
Description	The overarching goal of this study is to investigate the time-varying effects of flow variation and food availability on longfin smelt population dynamics, via advanced modeling of a diverse set of environmental and ecological monitoring time series. Specifically, this project will:(1) Assess how key environmental drivers (flow, salinity, temperature) and zooplankton abundance have changed over the past 5 decades (1967 to present) across the San Francisco Estuary (SFE); (2) Examine how longfin smelt population dynamics have changed over that time period, and whether/when breakpoints in abundance and trends exist (e.g., periods of 'decline' vs' stability'); (3) Quantify the effects of environmental vs. food-related drivers--and potential interactions between them--on driving observed fluctuations in longfin smelt dynamics; (4) Determine whether/how environment-smelt relationships have changed in magnitude or sign over time; and if they changed, whether such changes have been spatially consistent across the SFE. These goals will inform ongoing conservation efforts of longfin smelt by determining the combinations of flow, habitat, and prey availability conditions that lead to stable population dynamics for the species.
Science topics	Fish, Flows, Longfin Smelt, Zooplankton
Updated	November 30, 2022

Title	From Microbes to Zooplankton, What Defines a Beneficial Wetland?
Lead	San Francisco State University, Estuary & Ocean Science Center
Description	Our study will characterize species diversity at multiple levels of biological organization in the water column of restoring wetlands in the upper San Francisco Estuary and Delta (SFE), from bacteria to fishes. In doing so, we will also describe the foodweb benefits being provided to larval fishes, including longfin smelt, through additional dietary DNA analysis. We will use the species diversity we find in the water column to identify a subset of biota that are indicative of the conditions present in wetlands in different stages of restoration (early, intermediate, and mature) and identify connections between those indicators to the foodweb resources being provided to higher trophic levels. We will study 3-4 wetlands in each of 3 stages: early (unvegetated), intermediate (partially vegetated and partially channelized), and mature (fully vegetated and channelized) wetlands.
Science topics	Crustaceans, Cyanobacteria, Estuaries, Fish, Food webs, Habitat, Habitat restoration, Insects, Invertebrates, Longfin Smelt, Other species, Other zooplankton, Pelagic fish, Phytoplankton, Predation, Restoration, Salinity, Saltwater / freshwater marshes, Tidal wetlands, Wetlands, Zooplankton
Updated	January 31, 2024

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