Freshwater Salinisation

My students and I participated in a regional-scale experiment on road salt impacts on freshwater zooplankton through an international Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network GLEON collaboration led by SE Arnott (Queen’s). This led to several student-led field experimental studies from my lab, as well as papers produced through three consecutive working groups (Canadian Institute for Ecology and Evolution (CIEE) and Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en limnologie (GRIL ).
The papers produced through these collaborations have important management recommendations for the re-evaluation of water quality guidelines for the protection of aquatic life for chloride in the environment.

We are presently applying paleolimnology and resurrection ecology to elucidate evolutionary responses in gene expression and fitness traits to freshwater salinization in Daphnia pulicaria, a keystone freshwater zooplankton species, and resulting impacts on temporal algal biomass dynamics, in lakes in the Laurentides region of Quebec, Canada. PhD candidate D. Fortin-Archambault (UQAM); Collaborators: Gregory-Eaves, McGill, and J. Smol (Queen’s).

Arnott, S.E., V. Fugère, C.C. Symons, S.J. Melles, B.E. Beisner, M. Cañedo-Argüelles, M.-P. Hébert, J.A. Brentrup, A.L. Downing, D.K. Gray, D. Greco, W.D. Hintz, A. McClymont, R.A. Relyea, J.A. Rusak, C.L. Searle, L. Astorg, H.K. Baker, Z. Ersoy, C. Espinosa, J.M. Franceschini, G.F. Fussmann, A.T. Giorgio, N. Göbeler, E. Hassal, M. Huynh, S. Hylander, K.L. Jonasen, A. Kirkwood, S. Langenheder, O. Langvall, H. Laudon, L. Lind, M. Lundgren, E.R. Moffett, L. Proia, M.S. Schuler, J.B. Shurin, C.F. Steiner, M. Striebel, S. Thibodeau, P. Urrutia Cordero, L. Vendrell-Puigmitja, G.A. Weyhenmeyer, and A.M. Derry. 2023. Widespread variation in salt tolerance within freshwater zooplankton species reduces the predictability of community-level salt tolerance. Limnology and Oceanography Letters, special issue on Freshwater Salinization 8(1): 8-18. DOI

Astorg, L., J.-C. Gagnon, C. Lazar, and A.M. Derry. 2023. Effects of freshwater salinization on a salt-naïve planktonic eukaryote community. Limnology and Oceanography Letters, special issue on Freshwater Salinization 8(1): 38-47. DOI

Hébert, M.P., C.C. Symons, M. Cañedo-Argüelles, S.E. Arnott, A.M. Derry, V. Fugère, W.D. Hintz, S.J. Melles, L. Astorg, H.K. Baker, J.A. Brentrup, A.L. Downing, Z. Ersoy, C. Espinosa, J.M. Franceschini, A.T. Giorgio, N. Göbeler, D.K. Gray, D. Greco, E. Hassal, M. Huynh, S. Hylander, K.L. Jonasen, A. Kirkwood, S. Langenheder, O. Langvall, H. Laudon, L. Lind, M. Lundgren, A. McClymont, L. Proia, R.A. Relyea, J.A. Rusak, M.S. Schuler, C.L. Searle, J.B. Shurin10, C.F. Steiner, M. Striebel, S. Thibodeau, P. Urrutia Cordero, L. Vendrell- Puigmitja, G.A. Weyhenmeyer, and B.E. Beisner. 2023. Lake salinization drives consistent losses of zooplankton abundance and diversity across coordinated experiments. Limnology and Oceanography Letters, special issue on Freshwater Salinization 8(1): 19-29. DOI

Hintz, W.D., S.E. Arnott, C.C. Symons, D.A. Greco, A. McClymont, J.A. Brentrup, M. Cañedo-Argüelles, A.M. Derry, A.L. Downing, D.K. Gray, S.J. Melles, R.A. Relyea, J. Rusak, C.L. Searle, L. Astorg, H.K. Baker, B.E. Beisner, K.L. Cottingham, Z. Ersoy, C. Espinosa, J. Franceschini, A.T. Giorgio, N. Göbeler, E. Hassal, M.-P. Hébert, M. Huynh, S. Hylander, K. L. Jonasen, A.E. Kirkwood, S. Langenheder, O. Langvall, H. Laudon, L. Lind, M. Lundgren, L. Proia, M.S. Schuler, J.B. Shurin, C.F. Steiner, M. Striebel, S. Thibodeau, P. Urrutia-Cordero, L. Vendrell- Puigmitja, and G.A. Weyhenmeyer. 2022. Current water quality guidelines across North America and Europe do not protect lake food webs from freshwater salinization. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 119(9): e2115033119. DOI