Biological Monitoring in Canada
Content
Nuria Valdés Mediavilla 01/20/2010
European master of inland water quality assessment
1. Type of water bodies: lakes, rivers and wetlands 2. Water management 3. General monitoring 4. Biological monitoring 1. CABIN 2. EMAN 3. CAISIN 5. Grat Lakes monitoring Programs
1. Legislative Framework
2. Great Lakes monitoring and Gap analysis
1.Lakes
Canada has more lakes area than any other country in the world. Great Lakes: boundary between Canada-USA
it is an important area for both countries: water supply, transport, hydroelectricity, site of industrial, commercial, agricultural, and urban development problems: deteriorating water quality through industrial and municipal uses, fluctuating water levels, flooding, and shoreline erosion, acid rain, airborne toxics, depletion of wetland areas, increased demands on the shoreline land base, the impacts associated with the unintentional introduction of exotic species, and climate change.
2. Rivers
Rivers in Canada flow into five ocean-equivalent drainage basins: the Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic oceans, Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. The individual river system with the largest drainage area is the Mackenzie River, with 1.805.200 square kilometres. The Canadian Heritage Rivers System was established in 1984 to conserve and protect the best examples of Canada’s river heritage, to give them national recognition, and to encourage the public to enjoy and appreciate them
3. Wetlands
Wetlands cover about 14% of the land area of Canada. Recently, wetlands have become an increasingly scarce resource in settled areas of the country. Throughout Canada, wetlands have been adversely affected by land use practices that have resulted in vegetation destruction, nutrient and toxic loading, sedimentation, and altered flow regimes.
Canada
Federal Government Provincial Government Municipals Government Territories Aboriginal Government
- Shared federal-provincial responsibilities include: - agriculture; - significant national water issues - health. - federal government fisheries, navigation, federal lands, and international relations, including responsibilities related to the management of boundary waters shared with the United States. - Canadian provinces and one of the territories have the primary jurisdiction over most areas of water management and protection. Most of those governments delegate certain authorities to municipalities, especially the drinking water treatment and distribution and wastewater treatment operations of urban areas.
Environment
Canada’s
Freshwater
Quality
Monitoring
activities are focused on the assessment and reporting on status, trends and surveillance in fulfillment of many federal and international legislative and reporting obligations. Three different parameters are measured in this monitoring: - Physical parameters - Chemical parameters - Biological parameters: CABIN
1. CABIN (Canadian Aquatic Biomonitoring Network) CABIN is a collaborative program developed and maintained by Environment Canada to establish a network of reference sites available to all users interested in assessing the biological health of fresh water in Canada. This program monitors the benthic macroinvertebrates through all Canada. The initial focus of the CABIN network is the use of benthic invertebrate communities in ecological assessment. The contributors of CABIN are: National Water Reserch Institute, Canadian Rivers Institute, Acadia University, Geoconnexions and EMAN.
1. CABIN (Canadian Aquatic Biomonitoring Network)
1. CABIN (Canadian Aquatic Biomonitoring Network) CABIN Protocol The layout of the manual attempts to follow the logical progression and sequence of events in designing, collecting, analysing, and interpreting a project. There are 4 major sections: 1. Data Collection: where there is some superficial discussion about study design, but the main focus is the site selection and on site procedures and protocols. Kick-net sampling 2. Laboratory Processing: which describe the actual sequence of processes for handling samples, sorting invertebrate samples and data management and data entry. 3. Taxonomy: which provides an identification key to the family level for the organisms. 4. Data Interpretation: where some recommended summary descriptors
1. CABIN (Canadian Aquatic Biomonitoring Network)
CABIN Protocol – DATA INTERPRETATION
• Taxonomic richness • EPT richness: This measures the total number of Mayflies (Ephemeroptera), Stoneflies (Plecoptera), and Caddisflies (Trichoptera) which are typically most sensitive to habitat disturbance. • Shannon-Wiener diversity • Equitability: This expresses how evenly the individuals are distributed among the different species, and is often termed evenness • Dominance: Dominance is the inverse of equitability, and shows the pattern of dominance across the community
1. CABIN (Canadian Aquatic Biomonitoring Network) CABIN Protocol – DATA INTERPRETATION • Hilsenhoff family biotic index: the similarity between the reference sites and the test sites. This can be expressed as percent similarity: % Similarity = (reference HBI/test HBI) x 100
• Bray-Curtis similarity: The B-C index measures the percentage of difference between sites.
2. EMAN (Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network) It is made up of linked organizations and individuals involved in ecological monitoring in Canada to better detect, describe, and report on ecosystem changes. The network is a cooperative partnership of federal, provincial and municipal governments, academic institutions, aboriginal communities and organizations, industry, environmental non-government organizations, volunteer community groups, elementary and secondary schools and other groups/individuals involved in ecological monitoring. Environment Canada EMAN-CO
2. EMAN (Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network) EMAN Protocols 1. Benthic macroinvertebrates - Data collection: Lakes and rivers - Laboratory processing: It explains the methods that can be used to separate the macroinvertebrates in order to identify them - Data interpretation: - Pilot/reconnaissance studies: these studies can be used to reveal what organisms occur, their approximate densities, and their spatial aggregations, all essential elements in the design of a full-scale program. - Population/community characteristics: - Detection of differences - Rapid assessment approaches (RAAs). Biotic indices and scoring systems
2. EMAN (Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network) EMAN Protocols 2. Parasites of fishes - Data collection: the samples will be the host organisms of the parasites. - Laboratory processing: Method used to identify all parasites that can be found in the host organisms: eyes, muscles - Data interpretation: - prevalence, mean abundance, and mean intensity - There are numerous measures of diversity used in parasitology, including species richness, the Shannon-Wiener Index, Simpson’s Index, Berger-Parker Index, and Brillouin Index. - statistically determine whether parasite populations or communities differ from one site to another, or from one time period to another.
2. EMAN (Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network)
EMAN Protocols
3. Phytoplankton - Data collection: Phytoplankton has to be sampled in lakes. This protocol allows to type of sampling: quantitative and qualitative. - Laboratory processing: It is necessary to either identify all the specimens or identify and count all of them, depending on the type of sample which has been taken. - Data interpretation: - Phytoplankton data need to be summarized and plotted to enable seasonal, annual, and long-term analysis. - Graphics can be done, in order to interpret better the results. - species richness, a species diversity index, or a similarity index: Simpson's Diversity Index for phytoplankton and Percent similarity analysis are recommended.
2. EMAN (Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network) EMAN Protocols
4. Zooplankton - Data collection: site description, sampling frequency, environmental factors and sampling procedures for the different organisms: crustacea, macrozooplankton and rotifera. - Laboratory processing: A number of methods have been developed to subsample zooplankton collections. The easiest approach is to remove quantitative subsamples from fully mixed samples using a wide-bore pipette. - Data interpretation: In this case, the methods which can be used to interpret the results are just recommendations: - Comparisons of abundances - Univariate community measures - Multivariate methods
2. EMAN (Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network) EMAN Protocols 5. Ontario Benthos Biomonitoring Network Protocol Manual
2. EMAN (Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network) EMAN Protocols 5. Ontario Benthos Biomonitoring Network Protocol Manual Identification to the coarse 27 group level is sufficient for OBBN participation.
2. EMAN (Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network) EMAN Protocols 5. Ontario Benthos Biomonitoring Network Protocol Manual Assessing biological condition 1. Summarize biological condition using a set of metrics: it is recommended using a large set of metrics in order to contribute as much information as possible to assessments. Well known metrics such as taxonomic richness, percent oligochaeta, percent EPT, percent Chironomidae, percent Insecta, and percent dominant taxa, biotic indices multivariate summaries, and various proportional indices and some familiarity with advanced statistical methods. 2. Predict a test site to a reference group using niche variables 3. Use the reference site group to establish the normal range of biological condition to be expected for a test site. 4. Test the hypothesis that the test site falls within the normal range:
3. CAISIN The Canadian Aquatic Invasive Species Network is a national league of specialists created to examine
and identify existing invasions with the goal to
predict and prevent new aquatic invasive species from harming Canada’s aquatic ecosystems.
1. LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK
The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA), first signed in 1972 and renewed in 1978, expresses the commitment of Canada and the United States to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem and includes a number of objectives and guidelines to achieve these goals.
2. GREAT LAKES MONITORING AND GAP ANALYSIS It is the first attempt to develop a comprehensive binational inventory of monitoring programs in the Great Lakes basin and evaluate current levels of monitoring efforts against regional monitoring needs In total, information describing more than 600 monitoring programs is contained in the Great Lakes Monitoring Inventory. 521 programs were reported for the U.S. portion of the Great Lakes basin 123 programs reported for the Canadian portion of the basin
2. GREAT LAKES MONITORING AND GAP ANALYSIS 2.1. Great Lakes Toxics Biomonitoring Long-term monitoring of contaminant levels in mussels, zebra mussels, juvenile fish, and selected sport fish is undertaken to track levels of toxic contaminants (i.e. persistent, bioaccumulative substances) through time across the Great Lakes.
2.2. Great Lakes Water Intake Biomonitoring Water intake biomonitoring is undertaken to identify long term trends in nutrient status using year-round (weekly-monthly) nutrient concentrations and phytoplankton biomass as indicators. It may provide an indication of effects from a variety of stressors not actively monitored in the aquatic environment
2. GREAT LAKES MONITORING AND GAP ANALYSIS 2.3. Juvenile fish monitoring Trace organics such as PCBs and organochlorine pesticides (e.g. DDT, lindane, chlordane) are of concern due to their persistence and their potential to bioaccumulate through the food web into top predator fish and subsequently into fish-eating birds and mammals. For this reason, analysis of biological tissue is a useful means of augmenting water and sediment sample analysis.
2. GREAT LAKES MONITORING AND GAP ANALYSIS
2.4. Great lakes marsh monitoring program This program is carried out by a network of dedicated "Citizen Scientist" volunteer surveyors. The MMP functions to provide long-term monitoring of marsh-dependent bird and anuran (frog and toad) species in marsh habitats throughout the Great Lakes basin. Data collected by MMP volunteers is used to determine long-term trends in species diversity, occurrence and abundance, and to directly inform and guide conservation, restoration and management programs for marshes and their bird and amphibian inhabitants. This program is focused on wetlands.
-General monitoring is well developed in Canada - Biological monitoring could be more used because it would provide more complete data - Canada is a country with an important environment
awareness
THANK YOU
European master of inland water quality assessment
1. Type of water bodies: lakes, rivers and wetlands 2. Water management 3. General monitoring 4. Biological monitoring 1. CABIN 2. EMAN 3. CAISIN 5. Grat Lakes monitoring Programs
1. Legislative Framework
2. Great Lakes monitoring and Gap analysis
1.Lakes
Canada has more lakes area than any other country in the world. Great Lakes: boundary between Canada-USA
it is an important area for both countries: water supply, transport, hydroelectricity, site of industrial, commercial, agricultural, and urban development problems: deteriorating water quality through industrial and municipal uses, fluctuating water levels, flooding, and shoreline erosion, acid rain, airborne toxics, depletion of wetland areas, increased demands on the shoreline land base, the impacts associated with the unintentional introduction of exotic species, and climate change.
2. Rivers
Rivers in Canada flow into five ocean-equivalent drainage basins: the Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic oceans, Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. The individual river system with the largest drainage area is the Mackenzie River, with 1.805.200 square kilometres. The Canadian Heritage Rivers System was established in 1984 to conserve and protect the best examples of Canada’s river heritage, to give them national recognition, and to encourage the public to enjoy and appreciate them
3. Wetlands
Wetlands cover about 14% of the land area of Canada. Recently, wetlands have become an increasingly scarce resource in settled areas of the country. Throughout Canada, wetlands have been adversely affected by land use practices that have resulted in vegetation destruction, nutrient and toxic loading, sedimentation, and altered flow regimes.
Canada
Federal Government Provincial Government Municipals Government Territories Aboriginal Government
- Shared federal-provincial responsibilities include: - agriculture; - significant national water issues - health. - federal government fisheries, navigation, federal lands, and international relations, including responsibilities related to the management of boundary waters shared with the United States. - Canadian provinces and one of the territories have the primary jurisdiction over most areas of water management and protection. Most of those governments delegate certain authorities to municipalities, especially the drinking water treatment and distribution and wastewater treatment operations of urban areas.
Environment
Canada’s
Freshwater
Quality
Monitoring
activities are focused on the assessment and reporting on status, trends and surveillance in fulfillment of many federal and international legislative and reporting obligations. Three different parameters are measured in this monitoring: - Physical parameters - Chemical parameters - Biological parameters: CABIN
1. CABIN (Canadian Aquatic Biomonitoring Network) CABIN is a collaborative program developed and maintained by Environment Canada to establish a network of reference sites available to all users interested in assessing the biological health of fresh water in Canada. This program monitors the benthic macroinvertebrates through all Canada. The initial focus of the CABIN network is the use of benthic invertebrate communities in ecological assessment. The contributors of CABIN are: National Water Reserch Institute, Canadian Rivers Institute, Acadia University, Geoconnexions and EMAN.
1. CABIN (Canadian Aquatic Biomonitoring Network)
1. CABIN (Canadian Aquatic Biomonitoring Network) CABIN Protocol The layout of the manual attempts to follow the logical progression and sequence of events in designing, collecting, analysing, and interpreting a project. There are 4 major sections: 1. Data Collection: where there is some superficial discussion about study design, but the main focus is the site selection and on site procedures and protocols. Kick-net sampling 2. Laboratory Processing: which describe the actual sequence of processes for handling samples, sorting invertebrate samples and data management and data entry. 3. Taxonomy: which provides an identification key to the family level for the organisms. 4. Data Interpretation: where some recommended summary descriptors
1. CABIN (Canadian Aquatic Biomonitoring Network)
CABIN Protocol – DATA INTERPRETATION
• Taxonomic richness • EPT richness: This measures the total number of Mayflies (Ephemeroptera), Stoneflies (Plecoptera), and Caddisflies (Trichoptera) which are typically most sensitive to habitat disturbance. • Shannon-Wiener diversity • Equitability: This expresses how evenly the individuals are distributed among the different species, and is often termed evenness • Dominance: Dominance is the inverse of equitability, and shows the pattern of dominance across the community
1. CABIN (Canadian Aquatic Biomonitoring Network) CABIN Protocol – DATA INTERPRETATION • Hilsenhoff family biotic index: the similarity between the reference sites and the test sites. This can be expressed as percent similarity: % Similarity = (reference HBI/test HBI) x 100
• Bray-Curtis similarity: The B-C index measures the percentage of difference between sites.
2. EMAN (Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network) It is made up of linked organizations and individuals involved in ecological monitoring in Canada to better detect, describe, and report on ecosystem changes. The network is a cooperative partnership of federal, provincial and municipal governments, academic institutions, aboriginal communities and organizations, industry, environmental non-government organizations, volunteer community groups, elementary and secondary schools and other groups/individuals involved in ecological monitoring. Environment Canada EMAN-CO
2. EMAN (Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network) EMAN Protocols 1. Benthic macroinvertebrates - Data collection: Lakes and rivers - Laboratory processing: It explains the methods that can be used to separate the macroinvertebrates in order to identify them - Data interpretation: - Pilot/reconnaissance studies: these studies can be used to reveal what organisms occur, their approximate densities, and their spatial aggregations, all essential elements in the design of a full-scale program. - Population/community characteristics: - Detection of differences - Rapid assessment approaches (RAAs). Biotic indices and scoring systems
2. EMAN (Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network) EMAN Protocols 2. Parasites of fishes - Data collection: the samples will be the host organisms of the parasites. - Laboratory processing: Method used to identify all parasites that can be found in the host organisms: eyes, muscles - Data interpretation: - prevalence, mean abundance, and mean intensity - There are numerous measures of diversity used in parasitology, including species richness, the Shannon-Wiener Index, Simpson’s Index, Berger-Parker Index, and Brillouin Index. - statistically determine whether parasite populations or communities differ from one site to another, or from one time period to another.
2. EMAN (Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network)
EMAN Protocols
3. Phytoplankton - Data collection: Phytoplankton has to be sampled in lakes. This protocol allows to type of sampling: quantitative and qualitative. - Laboratory processing: It is necessary to either identify all the specimens or identify and count all of them, depending on the type of sample which has been taken. - Data interpretation: - Phytoplankton data need to be summarized and plotted to enable seasonal, annual, and long-term analysis. - Graphics can be done, in order to interpret better the results. - species richness, a species diversity index, or a similarity index: Simpson's Diversity Index for phytoplankton and Percent similarity analysis are recommended.
2. EMAN (Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network) EMAN Protocols
4. Zooplankton - Data collection: site description, sampling frequency, environmental factors and sampling procedures for the different organisms: crustacea, macrozooplankton and rotifera. - Laboratory processing: A number of methods have been developed to subsample zooplankton collections. The easiest approach is to remove quantitative subsamples from fully mixed samples using a wide-bore pipette. - Data interpretation: In this case, the methods which can be used to interpret the results are just recommendations: - Comparisons of abundances - Univariate community measures - Multivariate methods
2. EMAN (Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network) EMAN Protocols 5. Ontario Benthos Biomonitoring Network Protocol Manual
2. EMAN (Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network) EMAN Protocols 5. Ontario Benthos Biomonitoring Network Protocol Manual Identification to the coarse 27 group level is sufficient for OBBN participation.
2. EMAN (Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network) EMAN Protocols 5. Ontario Benthos Biomonitoring Network Protocol Manual Assessing biological condition 1. Summarize biological condition using a set of metrics: it is recommended using a large set of metrics in order to contribute as much information as possible to assessments. Well known metrics such as taxonomic richness, percent oligochaeta, percent EPT, percent Chironomidae, percent Insecta, and percent dominant taxa, biotic indices multivariate summaries, and various proportional indices and some familiarity with advanced statistical methods. 2. Predict a test site to a reference group using niche variables 3. Use the reference site group to establish the normal range of biological condition to be expected for a test site. 4. Test the hypothesis that the test site falls within the normal range:
3. CAISIN The Canadian Aquatic Invasive Species Network is a national league of specialists created to examine
and identify existing invasions with the goal to
predict and prevent new aquatic invasive species from harming Canada’s aquatic ecosystems.
1. LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK
The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA), first signed in 1972 and renewed in 1978, expresses the commitment of Canada and the United States to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem and includes a number of objectives and guidelines to achieve these goals.
2. GREAT LAKES MONITORING AND GAP ANALYSIS It is the first attempt to develop a comprehensive binational inventory of monitoring programs in the Great Lakes basin and evaluate current levels of monitoring efforts against regional monitoring needs In total, information describing more than 600 monitoring programs is contained in the Great Lakes Monitoring Inventory. 521 programs were reported for the U.S. portion of the Great Lakes basin 123 programs reported for the Canadian portion of the basin
2. GREAT LAKES MONITORING AND GAP ANALYSIS 2.1. Great Lakes Toxics Biomonitoring Long-term monitoring of contaminant levels in mussels, zebra mussels, juvenile fish, and selected sport fish is undertaken to track levels of toxic contaminants (i.e. persistent, bioaccumulative substances) through time across the Great Lakes.
2.2. Great Lakes Water Intake Biomonitoring Water intake biomonitoring is undertaken to identify long term trends in nutrient status using year-round (weekly-monthly) nutrient concentrations and phytoplankton biomass as indicators. It may provide an indication of effects from a variety of stressors not actively monitored in the aquatic environment
2. GREAT LAKES MONITORING AND GAP ANALYSIS 2.3. Juvenile fish monitoring Trace organics such as PCBs and organochlorine pesticides (e.g. DDT, lindane, chlordane) are of concern due to their persistence and their potential to bioaccumulate through the food web into top predator fish and subsequently into fish-eating birds and mammals. For this reason, analysis of biological tissue is a useful means of augmenting water and sediment sample analysis.
2. GREAT LAKES MONITORING AND GAP ANALYSIS
2.4. Great lakes marsh monitoring program This program is carried out by a network of dedicated "Citizen Scientist" volunteer surveyors. The MMP functions to provide long-term monitoring of marsh-dependent bird and anuran (frog and toad) species in marsh habitats throughout the Great Lakes basin. Data collected by MMP volunteers is used to determine long-term trends in species diversity, occurrence and abundance, and to directly inform and guide conservation, restoration and management programs for marshes and their bird and amphibian inhabitants. This program is focused on wetlands.
-General monitoring is well developed in Canada - Biological monitoring could be more used because it would provide more complete data - Canada is a country with an important environment
awareness
THANK YOU
