Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

LSU oceanographer to discuss farm–to–Mississippi Gulf impact November 12

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October 28, 2009

 AMES, Iowa -- One of the scientists who has measured the size and researched the science of the oxygen-deprived “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico every year since 1985 will share his findings at Iowa State University on November 12.

R. Eugene Turner, Distinguished Research Master at Louisiana State University, will speak on “Mississippi River Water Quality: Policy, Farm Landscapes and Hypoxia.” His Iowa appearance is part of the 2009 Dennis Keeney Distinguished Lecture Series at ISU. The series, begun in 2007 and named for the first director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, focuses on agricultural issues related to policy.

The lecture is open to the public and will begin at 8 p.m. in the Sun Room of the ISU Memorial Union in Ames. The public also is invited to meet Turner during a reception in the South Ballroom prior to the lecture at 7 p.m.

“I am pleased that Iowa State can host one of the world’s foremost experts on the use of land in the Mississippi River basin and the formation of the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Keeney, Emeritus Professor in the ISU Agronomy and Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Departments. “Gene was the first to link agriculture and hypoxia and can offer an historical perspective on the causes of hypoxia.”

Turner is a member of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium that takes measurements every summer during a week-long cruise throughout the Gulf to determine the size of the “dead zone,” the region that does not have enough oxygen to support aquatic life. It is believed that the growth of this zone, which measured just over 3,000 square miles in 2009, is fueled by nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from agricultural and other activity in the Mississippi River watershed. The extra nutrients simulate excessive algae growth that sinks, decomposes and consumes most of the life-giving oxygen supply in the water.

Jeri Neal, who leads the Leopold Center’s Ecological Systems Research Initiative, said Turner is one of the nation’s leading wetland ecologists and has helped develop models to forecast the size of the low-oxygen zone in the Gulf. He also has cultivated relationships with partners from Iowa, Minnesota and the Upper Midwest for a number of years through the Green Lands, Blue Waters initiative. His most recent collaboration looked at the relationship between water quality and land-use changes in U.S. watersheds during the past 100 years.

Turner works in LSU’s Coastal Ecology Institute and the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences. He organized and chairs the Wetlands Working Group of the International Association for Ecology and received the 1998 National Wetlands Award from the Environmental Law Institute. He has an undergraduate degree from Monmouth College in Illinois, a master’s degree in biology from Drake University and a Ph.D. in ecology from the University of Georgia.

The lecture is sponsored by the Leopold Center and ISU Committee on Lectures (funded by GSB).

For more info contact:

Jeri Neal, Leopold Center Ecology Initiative, (515) 294-5610, wink@iastate.edu

Laura Miller, Leopold Center Communications, (515) 294-5272, lwmiller@iastate.edu

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