Grant: Canada Research Chairs

Many environmental impacts occur because of pulse-exposure to contaminants including pesticides, toxic industrial chemicals and oil spills. Continued environmental deterioration over the past century, highlighted by global water quality crises such as the recent oil spill in the Gulf makes the ability to understand the long term consequences of such impacts vital to protecting aquatic ecosystems. Current monitoring often involves significant delays that increase environmental risk, while knowledge regarding impacts of such pulse-exposures remains limited. This research program will investigate contaminant pulse-exposure effects on aquatic organisms and provide environmental managers with better tools for assessing and mitigating their impacts.