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I am a biogeochemist working on algal blooms ![]()
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Our group makes small packages ![]()
My research is currently focused on the biogeochemical cycling of nutrients and related elements, and human and climate related disruptions of these cycles. For many years, I have conducted whole-ecosystem research at the world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area studying reservoir creation, ecosystem metabolism and eutrophication. To study the fate of biogeochemical elements, I often integrate stable isotope measurements with process based ecological models.
Baulch HM, Bauer J, Boyer L, Nugent, K, Painter KJ, Venkiteswaran JJ, Vuleta L, Whitfield CJ. 2025. Dataset of high-frequency water quality and meteorological variables in Buffalo Pound Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada, 2014 – 2021. Data in Brief 112290, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2025.112290.
Spence DS. Painter KJ, Nazemi A, Venkiteswaran JJ, Baulch HM. 2025. Climate variability and flow management impact phytoplankton biomass in a shallow reservoir. Environmental Science: Advances, https://doi.org/10.1039/D5VA00094G.
Spence DS. Painter KJ, Nazemi A, Venkiteswaran JJ, Baulch HM. 2025. Climate variability is an important driver of water treatability in a shallow reservoir. Science of the Total Environment 1004: 180786, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.180786.
Stemkovski M, Bernhardt JR, Blonder BW, Bradford JB, Clark-Wolf K, Dee LE, Evans MEK, Iglesias V, Johnson LC, Lynch AJ, Malone SL, Osborne BB, Pastore MA, Paterson MJ, Pinsky ML, Rollinson CR, Selmoni O, Venkiteswaran JJ, Walker AP, Ward NK, Williams JW, Zarakas CM, Adler PB. 2025. Ecological acclimation: A framework to integrate fast and slow responses to climate change. Functional Ecology 39(8): 1923-1939, https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.70079.
Molot LA, Schiff SL, Baulch HM, Curry RA, Depew DC, Dove A, Higgins SN, Kidd KA, Korosi JB, Paterson AM, Pick FR, Venkiteswaran JJ, Watson SB, Zastepa A. 2025. Survey of metabolically essential trace metals in inland lakes and reservoirs across Canada: What constitutes a low metal system? Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 82: 1-21, https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2024-0078.
Shah P, Venkiteswaran JJ, Molot LA, Higgins SN, Schiff SL, Baulch HM, Zastepa A. 2024. Cobalt as a potential limiting factor for heterocyst frequency in nitrogen-limited Aphanizomenon and Dolichospermum: Evidence from experimental and field studies. Freshwater Biology 69(8): 1069-1083, https://doi.org/10.1111/fwb.14290.
Virgin TL, Sonthiphand P, Coyotzi S, Hall MW, Venkiteswaran JJ, Cejudo E, Elgood RJ, Schiff SL, Neufeld JD. 2024. Microbial communities change along the 300-km length of a highly impacted river for both extreme high- and low-flow regimes. Canadian Journal of Microbiology 70(7): 289-302, https://doi.org/10.1139/cjm-2023-0092.
Tsuji JM, Shaw NA, Nagashima S, Venkiteswaran JJ, Schiff SL, Watanabe T, Fukui M, Hanada S, Tank M, Neufeld JD. 2024. Anoxygenic phototroph of the Chloroflexota uses a type I reaction centre. Nature 627, 915-922, doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07180-y.
Reinl KL, Harris TD, North RL, Almela P, Berger SA, Bizic M, Burnet SH, Urrutia-Cordero P, Grossart H-P, Ibelings BW, Jakobsson E, Knoll LB, Lafrancois BM, McElarney Y, Morales-Williams AM, Obertegger U, Ogashawara I, Paule-Mercado MC, Peierls BL, Rusak JA, Sarkar S, Sharma S, Trout-Haney JV, Venkiteswaran JJ, Wain DJ, Warner K, Weyhenmeyer GA, Yokota K. 2023. Blooms also like it cold. Limnology and Oceanography Letters 8(4): 546-564, doi: 10.1002/lol2.10316.
Painter KJ, Venkiteswaran JJ, Baulch HM. 2023. Blooms and flows: Effects of variable hydrology and management on reservoir water quality. Ecosphere 14(3): e4472, doi: 10.1002/ecs2.4472.
Shah P, McCabe SK, Venkiteswaran JJ, Molot LA, Schiff SL. 2023. Monod parameterization and competition at low iron among freshwater cyanobacteria and chlorophytes. Hydrobiologia 850: 1141-1157, doi: 10.1007/s10750-023-05150-5.
Sharma S, Futter MN, Spence C, Venkiteswaran JJ, Whitfield CJ. 2023. Modeling subarctic watershed dissolved organic carbon response to hydroclimatic regime. Science of the Total Environment, 857(Part3): 159382, doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159382.
Lui K, Schiff SL, Wu L, Molot LA, Venkiteswaran JJ, Paterson MJ, Elgood RJ, Neufeld JD. 2022. Large fractionation in iron isotopes implicates metabolic pathways for iron cycling in boreal shield lakes. Environmental Science & Technology, 56(20): 14840-14851, doi: 10.1021/acs.est.2c04247.
Painter KJ, Venkiteswaran JJ, Simon DF, Duy SV, Sauvé S, Balch HM. 2022. Early and late cyanobacterial bloomers in a shallow, eutrophic lake. Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts 24: 1217-1227, doi: 10.1039/D2EM00078D.
Piatka DR, Venkiteswaran JJ, Uniyal B, Kaule R, Gelfedder, Barth JAC. 2022. Dissolved oxygen isotope modelling refines metabolic state estimates of stream ecosystems with different land use background. Scientific Reports 12: 10204, doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-13219-9.
Abbes S, Vo Duy S, Munoz G, Dinh QT, Simon DF, Husk B, Baulch HM, Vinçon-Leite B, Fortin N, Greer CW, Larsen ML, Venkiteswaran JJ, Martínez Jerónimo FF, Giani A, Lowe CD, Tromas N, Sauvé S. 2022. Occurrence of BMAA Isomers in Bloom-Impacted Lakes and Reservoirs of Brazil, Canada, France, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. Toxins. 14(4): 251, doi: 10.3390/toxins14040251.
Persaud BD, Dukacz KA, Saha GC, Peterson A, Moradi L, O'Hearn S, Clary E, Mai J, Steeleworthy M, Venkiteswaran JJ, Kheyrollah Pour H, Wolfe BB, Carey SK, Pomeroy JW, DeBeer CM, Waddington JM, Van Cappellen P, Lin J. 2021. Ten best practices to strengthen stewardship and sharing of water science data in Canada. Hydrological Processes, 35(11): e14385, doi: 10.1002/hyp.14385.
Salk KR, Venkiteswaran JJ, Couture R-M, Higgins SN, Paterson MJ, Schiff SL. 2022. Warming combined with experimental eutrophication intensifies lake phytoplankton blooms. Limnology & Oceanography 67(1): 147-158, doi: 10.1002/lno.11982.
Baron AAA, Dyck LT, Hamjad H, Bragg J, Kroft E, Newson J, Oleson K, Casson NJ, North RL, Venkiteswaran JJ, Whitfield CJ. 2022. Differences in ebullitive methane release from small, shallow ponds present challenges for scaling. Science of The Total Environment. 802: 149685, doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.149685.
Jasiak I, Wiklund JA, Leclerc É, Telford JV, Couture R-M, Venkiteswaran JJ, Hall RI, Wolfe BB. 2021. Evaluating spatiotemporal patterns of arsenic, antimony, and lead deposition from legacy gold mine emissions using lake sediment records. Applied Geochemistry, doi: 10.1016/j.apgeochem.2021.105053.
Reinl KL, Brookes JD, Carey CC, Harris TD, Ibelings BW, Morales-Williams AM, De Senerpont Domis LN, Atkins KS, Isles PDF, Mesman JP, North RL, Rudstam LG, Stelzer JAA, Venkiteswaran JJ, Yokota K, Zhan Q. 2021. Cyanobacterial Blooms in Oligotrophic Lakes: Shifting the High Nutrient Paradigm. Freshwater Biology 66, 1846-1859, doi: 10.1111/fwb.13791.
Sokolov V, Habtewold J, VanderZaag A, Dunfield K, Gregorich E, Wagner-Riddle, Venkiteswaran JJ, Gordon R. 2021. Response Curves for Ammonia and Methane Emissions from Stored Liquid Manure Receiving Low Rates of Sulfuric Acid. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 5: 678992, doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2021.678992.
Leclerc É, Venkiteswaran JJ, Jasiak I, Telford JV, Wolfe BB, Hall RI, Schultz MDJ, Couture R-M. 2021. Quantifying arsenic post-depositional mobility in lake sediments impacted by gold ore roasting in sub-arctic Canada using inverse diagenetic modelling. Environmental Pollution 228, doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2021.117723.
Molot LA, Higgins SN, Schiff SL, Venkiteswaran JJ, Paterson MJ, Baulch HM. 2021. Phosphorus-only fertilization rapidly initiates large nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria blooms in two oligotrophic lakes. Environmental Research Letters 16: 6, doi: 1748-9326/ac0564.
Moore TN, Mesman JP, Ladwig R, Feldbauer J, Olsson F, Pilla RM, Shatwell T, Venkiteswaran JJ, Delany AD, Dugan H, Rose KC, Read JS. 2021. LakeEnsemblR: An R package that facilitates ensemble modelling of lakes. Environmental Modelling and Software 143: 105101, doi: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2021.105101.
Matiatos I, Wassenaar LI, Monteiro LR, Venkiteswaran JJ, Gooddy CD, Boeckx P, Sacchi E, Yue FY, Michalski G, Alonso-Hernández C, Biasi C, Bouchaou L, Edirisinghe EANV, Fadhullah W, Fianko JR, Garcia-Moya A, Kazakis N, Li SL, Luu TNM, Priyadarshanee S, Re V, Rivera D, Romanelli A, Sanyal P, Tamooh F, Trinh AD, Walters W, and Welti N. 2021. Global Patterns of Nitrate Isotope Composition in Rivers and Adjacent Aquifers Reveal Reactive Nitrogen Cascading. Communications Earth and Environment 2: 52, doi: 10.1038/s43247-021-00121-x.
Aukes PAK, Schiff SL, Venkiteswaran JJ, Elgood RJ, Spoelstra J. 2021. Size-Based Characterization of Freshwater Dissolved Organic Matter finds Similarities within a Water Body Type across Different Canadian Ecozones. Limnology and Oceanography Letters 6(2): 85-95, doi: 10.1002/lol2.10180.
Molot LA, Schiff SL, Venkiteswaran JJ, Baulch HM, Higgins SN, Zastepa A, Verschoor M, Walters D. 2021. Low sediment redox promotes cyanobacteria across a trophic range: implications for bloom management. Lake and Reservoir Management 37(2): 120-142, doi: 10.1080/10402381.2020.1854400.
Contact Info:
Office location: Arts Building 3E4
Office hours: By appointment.
Personal website: jjvenky.github.io