Benthic Biomonitoring of the Apex River and Airport Creek; A Community-Based Approach in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada ...

• Main Author: Medeiros, Andrew
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: Canadian Cryospheric Information Network (CCIN) 2021
• Subjects: Iqaluit; Nunavut
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.21963/13209; https://www.polardata.ca/pdcsearch/?doi_id=13209

A useful tool for monitoring the ecological health of aquatic systems is by means of benthic invertebrate analysis in a biomonitoring approach. Here, we investigate an approach for monitoring biological impairment in Arctic streams from anthropogenic land-use at two streams with different levels of development in Iqaluit, Nunavut including Airport Creek, a heavily urbanized stream and Apex River, a control site with mainly peri-urban impact in the summers of 2007-2009, 2014-2019, and 2018-2019. Invertebrate community structure and abundance were assessed with a methodology successfully adopted in temperate systems – a before-after-control-impact (BACI) study. Sites upstream of development, at mid-point locations, and at the mouth of each waterbody to address spatial relationships of site degradation. Subfamily identification of Chironomidae, and family-level resolution for all other taxa was used. Summary metrics (e.g. Shannon index, relative abundance) revealed biological impairment in downstream and ... : A biomonitoring study of the Airport Creek and Apex River focused on Benthic Macroinvertebrates collected from 2007-2009, 2014-2019, and 2018-2019 ...