Brian E. Drake
Contact Info:
E-mail:
briandrake@mail.utexas.edu
Biography
A native of the Pacific Northwest, I was born in Oregon but soon moved to Washington state where I spent the remainder of my childhood. Immersed in the wilds of the West, I love the mountains, rivers, and forests and became an avid hunter, fishermen, and general outdoor recreationalist. My family of six was very close and spent a lot of time together. I went to high school in East Wenatchee, WA, and graduated with salutatorian status from Eastmont High School in 2001. I attended Washington State University in rural eastern Washington and immersed myself in a number of activities, although my chief involvement was with the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), where I served in a number of different roles, including Chapter President and Concrete Canoe Team Captain. During my college summers, I worked as a wildland firefighter with the Entiat Hotshots (United States Forest Service). In 2005 I completed my degree, graduating Summa Cum Laude with a B.S. in Civil Engineering. Following graduation, my aquatic interests led me to the Environmental and Water Resources Engineering program at the University of Texas at Austin where I received my Master’s degree under the supervision of Dr. Danny Reible, focusing on the bioavailability of polycylclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and poly-chlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
Research
I studied the bioavailabilty and trophic transfer of PAHs and PCBs from a first level organism (tubificid oligochaete) to an invertebrate predator (grass shrimp) and comparing to physicochemical measurements of sediment and porewater concentrations. Porewater concentrations of these contaminants have been measured using both conventional methods and solid-phase microextraction (SPME). Some PCB congeners increase in tissue concentrations with increasing food chain length in aquatic systems and thus biomagnify, while the biomagnification potential of PAHs is generally considered to be low. Controlled trophic transfer experiments contrasting these two contaminant behaviors are being used to test models of bioavailability, bioaccumulation, and biomagnification. Specifically, two hypotheses are being tested concerning bioaccumulation across trophic levels in a food web that begins with contaminated sediment. First, we are testing the prediction by Gobas et al. (1999) that a deposit feeder with a diet low in lipid content should have a lower trophic transfer factor (i.e., BSAF) than a predator with a diet rich in lipids feeding on these organisms. To our knowledge, little research concerning this prediction has been tested across a food web beginning with a deposit-feeding worm to a predator by following the same compounds. Comparisons in trends between PAHs and PCBs should be revealing and will suggest if current models of biomagnification are generally effective and predictive. Second, we are testing if PAHs and PCBs achieve different lipid-normalized tissue concentrations in a predator feeding on a single prey species with known levels of contamination. PCBs may bioaccumulate differently if they partition more strongly to lipids than to the sediment organic carbon (compared to PAHs), or if PCBs are eliminated at slower rates than are PAHs. Results of these studies are still preliminary, but in their final form will provide crucial implications for assessment and remediation of contaminated sediment.
