Using adaptive processes and adverse outcome pathways to develop meaningful, robust, and actionable environmental monitoring programs.

The primary goals of environmental monitoring are to indicate whether unexpected changes related to development are occurring in the physical, chemical, and biological attributes of ecosystems and to inform meaningful management intervention. Although achieving these objectives is conceptually simple, varying scientific and social challenges often result in their breakdown. Conceptualizing, designing, and operating programs that better delineate monitoring, management, and risk assessment processes supported by hypothesis-driven approaches, strong inference, and adverse outcome pathways can overcome many of the challenges.

Lessons Learned from an Industry, Government and University Collaboration to Restore Stream Habitats and Mitigate Effects.

Restoration ecologists conduct both basic and applied research using a diversity of funding and collaborative models. Over the last 17 years we have assessed the effectiveness of a stream compensation project in Canada's north, where an independent university-based research program was a condition of the regulatory approval process. This resulted in a non-traditional university-government-industry partnership.

Development and application of benthic algal reference condition models to assess stream condition in the South Nahanni Watershed.

Monitoring biologists continually strive to improve the effectiveness of protocols to quantify environmental and ecological effects of anthropogenic activities. We developed and applied a reference condition approach (RCA) model to assess the ability of 3 descriptors of algal community structure (algal taxonomy, diatom taxonomy, and algal pigments) to identify impairment in 2 northern rivers in the South Nahanni River Watershed, Northwest Territories, Canada. We established reference conditions by sampling 62 regional reference (i.

Relations between water physico-chemistry and benthic algal communities in a northern Canadian watershed: defining reference conditions using multiple descriptors of community structure.

Defining reference conditions is central to identifying environmental effects of anthropogenic activities. Using a watershed approach, we quantified reference conditions for benthic algal communities and their relations to physico-chemical conditions in rivers in the South Nahanni River watershed, NWT, Canada, in 2008 and 2009. We also compared the ability of three descriptors that vary in terms of analytical costs to define algal community structure based on relative abundances of (i) all algal taxa, (ii) only diatom taxa, and (iii) photosynthetic pigments.

Evaluating the use of algal pigments to assess the biological condition of streams.

Assessments of stream condition using benthic algal communities have traditionally relied on taxonomy-based approaches to compare community structure at sites exposed to a stressor versus reference sites. Taxonomy-based methods are often effective, but they require high levels of training and are relatively time consuming and expensive. We examined the utility of assessing stream biological condition using algal pigments.

Assessing the effectiveness of a constructed Arctic stream using multiple biological attributes.

Objective assessment of habitat compensation is a central yet challenging issue for restoration ecologists. In 1997, a 3.4-km stream channel, designed to divert water around an open pit diamond mine, was excavated in the Barrenlands region of the Canadian Arctic to create productive stream habitat.

Cumulative industrial activity alters lotic fish assemblages in two boreal forest watersheds of Alberta, Canada.

We evaluated the cumulative effects of land use disturbance resulting from forest harvesting, and exploration and extraction of oil and gas resources on the occurrence and structure of stream fish assemblages in the Kakwa and Simonette watersheds in Alberta, Canada. Logistic regression models showed that the occurrence of numerically dominant species in both watersheds was related to two metrics defining industrial activity (i.e.

Consequences of livestock grazing on water quality and Benthic algal biomass in a Canadian natural grassland plateau.

The effects of livestock grazing on selected riparian and stream attributes, water chemistry, and algal biomass were investigated over a two-year period using livestock enclosures and by completing stream surveys in the Cypress Hills grassland plateau, Alberta, Canada. Livestock enclosure experiments, partially replicated in three streams, comprised four treatments: (1) early season livestock grazing (June-August), (2) late season livestock grazing (August-September), (3) all season grazing (June-September), and (4) livestock absent controls. Livestock grazing significantly decreased streambank stability, biomass of riparian vegetation, and the extent to which aquatic vegetation covered the stream channels compared with livestock-absent controls.

Feeding while evading predators by a lotic mayfly: linking short-term foraging behaviours to long-term fitness consequences.

Laboratory experiments were performed to quantify the combined effects of food abundance (low, high) and predation threat, imposed using a model fish (safe, risky) on fitness correlates (i.e. growth, time to emergence, adult body mass, fecundity, egg size) of the mayfly Baetis tricaudatus.

Reduction of predation risk under the cover of darkness: Avoidance responses of mayfly larvae to a benthic fish.

Mayfly larvae of Paraleptophlebia heteronea (McDunnough) had two antipredator responses to a nocturnal fish predator (Rhinichthys cataractae (Valenciennes)): flight into the drift and retreat into interstitial crevices. Drift rates of Paraleptophlebia abruptly increased by 30 fold when fish were actively foraging in the laboratory streams but, even before fish were removed, drift began returning to control levels because larvae settled to the substrate and moved to areas of low risk beneath stones. This drifting response was used as an immediate escape behavior which likely decreases risk of capture from predators which forage actively at night.

Mechanisms of algal patch depletion: importance of consumptive and non-consumptive losses in mayfly-diatom systems.

Laboratory experiments were performed to identify the mechanisms by which three mayfly grazers, Baetis tricaudatus, Ephemerella aurivilli and Paraleptophlebia heteronea deplete algae from substrates. Field observations indicated these mayflies foraged predominantly (>70% of all individuals) within small (1-2 cm diameter), low biomass areas where algal biomass was significantly lower than the surrounding algal mat. We postulated four models of algal patch depletion based on the combined effects of a type II functional response consumptive model and four possible forms of nonconsumptive loss.