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This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri bution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Investment in agricultural conservation practices (CPs) to address Lake Erie's re-eutrophication may offer benefits that extend beyond the lake, such as improvedhabitat conditions for fish communitiesthroughout the watershed. If such conditions are not explicitly considered in Lake Erie nutrient management strategies,however, this opportunity might be missed. Herein, we quantify the potential for common CPs that will be used to meet nutrient management goals for Lake Erietosimultaneously improve stream biological conditions throughout thewestern Lake Erie basin (WLEB) watershed. To do so, welinked a high-resolution watershed-hydrology model to predictive biological modelsin a conservation scenario framework.Our modeling simulationsshowedthat the implementationofCPs on farm acres in critical and moderate need of treatment, representing nearly half of the watershed,would be needed toreduce spring/early summer total phosphorus loads from the WLEB watershed to acceptable levels. This widespread CP implementation also would improve potential stream biological conditionsin >11,000km of streams and reduce the percentage of streams where water quality is limitingbiological conditions, from 31% to 20%.Despite these improvements, we found that even with additional treatment of acres in low need of CPs, degraded water quality conditionswould limit biological conditionsin>3,200 stream kilometers. Thus, while we expect CPs toplay an important role in mitigating eutrophicationproblems in the Lake Erie ecosystem, additional strategies and emerging technologies appear necessary to fully reduce water quality limitation throughout the watershed.