Aquatic Taxonomy Services

Aquatic organisms are used as indicators in biomonitoring and ecological assessment studies. GLEC has the professional staff and laboratory resources to sample, enumerate and identify, and photograph periphyton, phytoplankton, zooplankton, macroinvertebrates, and fish. GLEC staff have been collecting and identifying aquatic organisms for over 25 years. GLEC taxonomists have processed over 6,000 benthic macroinvertebrate samples and are certified by the Society for Freshwater Sciences. GLEC fish taxonomists are specialists in identifying North American freshwater fish species. GLEC’s two algal taxonomists hold doctorates in algal taxonomy and ecology and a combined 30 years of algal identificaton experience. Our Traverse City, MI laboratory has a full complement of precision analysis equipment supported by a comprehensive taxonomic library and reference specimens and images.

• Lieca DM research-quality microscopes with differential interference contrast
• Zeiss 47 inverted microscope
• Wild M8 and Bausch & Lomb dissecting microscopes
• Leica digital camera and software for scaled high resolution images
• Utermoehl sedimentation chambers
• Large library of taxonomic keys and descriptions, literature, and proceedings
• Extensive reference specimen collection
• Database with thousands of algal and zooplankton digital images
• Field sample collection equipment: D-nets, Hess samplers, Hester-Dendy samplers, dredge samplers