Project Quinte was a Canadian multi-agency collaborative initiative—launched in 1972 and lasting until 2018—that generated the longest ecosystem-based data set in the Great Lakes. The project produced a special bulletin of the Canadian Journal of Fisheries Science in 1986 and two special issues of Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management more recently. This monograph provides a broad sweep of the many facets of aquatic ecosystem structure and function that were explored in efforts to define and solve the challenges to ecosystem health present in the Bay of Quinte ecosystem and to sustain it hopefully far into the future. Many papers provide a long-term perspective that highlights the need to maintain monitoring programs while increasing our basic knowledge. Long-term studies of ecosystems like Quinte continually reveal new questions and challenges beyond the scope of controlled laboratory experiments. The health of the Bay of Quinte is much improved as a result of the long-term participation of people, time, and resources reflected in this book. The monograph through its twenty-six in-depth chapters opens a wide panorama for exploration and application of the ecosystem approach and the resulting productivity, with much remaining to be done by those that follow in these footsteps. Approximately one hundred scientists have collectively participated toward the preparation of various chapters included in this meticulously peer-reviewed monograph.

C. K. Minns has been a senior scientist at Fisheries & Oceans Canada since 1974 and played a key role in implementing ecosystem approach in the management of Project Quinte. He has served as guest editor of two special issues of AEHM on the Bay of Quinte. He has also served as the head of the Fish Habitat section and lead advisor of the Project Quinte.

Since 1969 Mohiuddin Munawar has been actively involved in Great Lakes research as a senior research scientist at Fisheries & Oceans Canada, Burlington, Ontario. His field of specialization is phytoplankton structure and ecology, microbial loop, planktonic food web, and ecosystem health and management of the Laurentian Great Lakes.

Marten A. Koops is a research scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, where he served as the lead manager for the Bay of Quinte food web monitoring program for a ten-year period (2007-2017). He is an ecological modeler and his research aims to better understand the factors that determine or limit the productivity of freshwater fishes, focusing on anthropogenic stressors, environmental conditions, life history traits, food web function, and the interactions among these factors.