Grant: Alliance Grants

The Alliance project will address debated uncertainties about how airborne Fe pollution to aquatic ecosystems from historical and contemporary Fe mining influences algal blooms and freshwater biodiversity that cause water quality problems for local First Nations communities in northeastern Quebec / northwestern Labrador, Canada. Our specific objectives are to determine the extent to which iron ore mining activities have: 1) altered primary production and cyanobacterial abundance 2) northern aquatic biodiversity in understudied taiga lakes. Environmental (e)DNA, combined with next-generation sequencing and metabarcoding, will be applied to classic paleolimnological approaches evaluate changes in cyanobacterial abundance and freshwater biodiversity in relation to the onset of mining activities in northeastern Québec / Labrador. We will train 1 BSc and 2 MSc students, who will benefit from the combined expertise of the Alliance Project team that spans academic (Derry, PI, UQAM; Gregory-Eaves, McGill; Smol, Queen's), government (Taranu, Environment Canada and Climate Change; Mohit, Ministère de l'Environnement, de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques, de la Faune et des Parcs du Québec), and societal (Innu Nation of Matimekush-Lac John and the Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach) sectors. We will tackle the unexplored impacts of Fe pollution from historical and ongoing mining sources on algal blooms and aquatic biodiversity in understudied taiga lakes at the center of Canadian Fe mining operations. The Alliance project will provide missing ecological information that can be harnessed by the Canadian government for developing policy on improved guidelines for managing airborne dust emissions associated with open pit mining operations in remote regions with sensitive ecosystems and Indigenous communities across northern Canada.