Grant: Alliance Grants

Canada's natural resource sector is subject to stringent environmental regulations. The mining and pulp and paper industries are mandated to perform Environmental Effects Monitoring (EEM) to detect and measure changes in aquatic ecosystems. EEMs include a quantitative assessment of benthic (bottom-dwelling) invertebrate species between exposure (downstream of discharge) and reference areas (upstream or similar watershed). These organisms provide a sensitive living register of ecosystem health, and thus constitute a critical component of effective aquatic biomonitoring programs. For decades, EEMs have relied on traditional morphological identifications of benthic specimens, a highly labour intensive approach that requires taxonomic expertise now in dwindling supply. This causes serious bottlenecks in the execution of EEMs and can delay detection of negative environmental impacts. DNA-based identification approaches (e.g., DNA-barcoding and environmental DNA metabarcoding) have enormous potential to transform EEM by accelerating accurate species identification and detection of environmental change. However, molecular methods require the creation of appropriate reference sequence libraries, methodological validation of standard operating procedures, HQP training and knowledge transfer tools before they can be fully adopted. This project will address said knowledge gaps and establish a standardized methodology to conduct molecular-based biomonitoring of benthic invertebrates. The project's overall objective is to validate the use of molecular methods and associated bioinformatic analyses as an alternative and cost-effective strategy for species identification that provides comparable (if not improved) results to traditional survey methods. This research will establish the consistency, reliability, and accuracy of results that will be critical to include DNA-based identification in EEM regulations and to overcome the general reluctance to risk basing decisions on new methods.