Parasites of an Arctic scavenger; the wolverine ( ).

Parasites are fundamental components within all ecosystems, shaping interaction webs, host population dynamics and behaviour. Despite this, baseline data is lacking to understand the parasite ecology of many Arctic species, including the wolverine ( ), a top Arctic predator and scavenger. Here, we combined traditional count methods (i.

Source Water Characteristics and Building-specific Factors Influence Corrosion and Point of Use Water Quality in a Decentralized Arctic Drinking Water System.

Access to clean and safe drinking water is a perpetual concern in Arctic communities because of challenging climatic conditions, limited options for the transportation of equipment and process chemicals, and the ongoing effects of colonialism. Water samples were gathered from multiple locations in a decentralized trucked drinking water system in Nunavut, Canada, over the course of one year. The results indicate that point of use drinking water quality was impacted by conditions in the source water and in individual buildings and strongly suggest that lead and copper measured at the tap were related to corrosion of onsite premise plumbing components.

Manganese Increases Lead Release to Drinking Water.

Lead and manganese are regulated in drinking water due to their neurotoxicity. These elements have been reported to co-occur in drinking water systems, in accordance with the metal-scavenging properties of MnO. To the extent that manganese is a driver of lead release, controlling it during water treatment may reduce lead levels.

Discrimination factors of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes from diet to hair in captive large Arctic carnivores of conservation concern.

Rationale: Stable isotope analysis is widely used to reconstruct diet, delineate trophic interactions, and determine energy pathways. Such ecological inferences are based on the idea that animals are, isotopically, what they eat but with a predictable difference between the isotopic ratio of a consumer and that of its diet, coined as the discrimination factor. Providing correct estimates of diet-consumer isotopic discrimination in controlled conditions is key for a robust application of the stable isotopes technique in the wild.

Landscape heterogeneity drives intra-population niche variation and reproduction in an arctic top predator.

While intra-population variability in resource use is ubiquitous, little is known of how this measure of niche diversity varies in space and its role in population dynamics. Here we examined how heterogeneous breeding environments can structure intra-population niche variation in both resource use and reproductive output. We investigated intra-population niche variation in the Arctic tundra ecosystem, studying peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus tundrius, White) breeding within a terrestrial-marine gradient near Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, Canada.

Marine mammal strandings and environmental changes: a 15-year study in the St. Lawrence ecosystem.

Understanding the effects of climatic variability on marine mammals is challenging due to the complexity of ecological interactions. We used general linear models to analyze a 15-year database documenting marine mammal strandings (1994-2008; n = 1,193) and nine environmental parameters known to affect marine mammal survival, from regional (sea ice) to continental scales (North Atlantic Oscillation, NAO). Stranding events were more frequent during summer and fall than other seasons, and have increased since 1994.