FACETS

Canadas ambition for mineral security and its responsibilities to protect at-risk species and uphold Indigenous rights clash in the case of the Grays Bay Road and Port (GBRP) in Nunavut, an infrastructure project intended to unlock critical mineral deposits. We compiled Indigenous and Western science through a density analysis of caribou harvesting data near the proposed project site. We identified three consistently used harvesting hotspots, with the most significant hotspot lying directly in the path of the proposed GBRP project. These results indicate that the GBRP project will have significant and unmitigable negative effects on caribou conservation, food security, and Inuit harvesting rights. Prime Minister Carney claims that middle power countries must act consistently in this era of geopolitical rupture; this commitment must transfer to natural resource development reviews so that decision-making may be consistent and rooted in cross-legislation responsibilities and values, including the land claims agreements between Indigenous groups and the Government of Canada.

Invasive species are a major driver of biodiversity loss, with invasive plants increasingly threatening wetland ecosystems. Southern Ontarios Carolinian Zone, a biodiversity hotspot supporting 79% of Ontarios non-fish Species at Risk (SAR), is especially vulnerable. Over half (54%) of these SAR rely on wetland or semiaquatic habitats, emphasizing the importance of wetland protection for their recovery. These habitats are fragmented and highly susceptible to plant invasions. To guide conservation, we conducted a spatial co-occurrence analysis of non-fish SAR dependent on wetlands and invasive wetland plant species. We identified 33 invasive species posing current (n = 26) or imminent (n = 7) threats in the Carolinian Zone. Overlap between SAR and invasive plants was greatest in Lake Eries coastal marshes and shallow waters, where invasions are well documented, and also in urban areas such as Toronto, Windsor, London, and Niagara, where SAR richness was unexpectedly high. Co-occurrence of SAR and invasive plants in these regions indicates that managing invasive plants in urban wetlands could directly support SAR recovery. Marsh-nesting birds, reptiles, and wetland plants were most exposed and vulnerable to habitat alteration and resource competition. Spatial analyses help pinpoint where invasive plants most threaten SAR, enabling targeted, effective management.

Despite the critical role of graduate students in the Canadian research ecosystem1, students report high levels of financial stress2. We collected graduate minimum stipends and tuition data from all university graduate programs in Canada in Ecological Sciences/Biology and Physics, along with cost of living measures for the cities in which they reside. This data is heterogeneous, complex, and in many cases simply not publicly available, making it challenging for potential graduate students to understand what support they should expect. We show Canadian minimum stipends are at values almost exclusively below the poverty threshold. Only two of 140 degree programs offered stipends which meet cost of living measures after subtracting tuition and fees. For graduate programs which offered a minimum guaranteed stipend, the average minimum domestic stipend is short [~]Can$9,468 (international [~]Can$16,899) of the poverty threshold after accounting for payment of tuition and fees. On average, approximately 34% of a minimum stipend is returned to the university by a domestic Canadian student and 78% (57% median) by an international student, though there are important caveats with the international student comparison. While international comparison is difficult, the highest Canadian minimum stipend is roughly equivalent or lower than the lowest stipend within the largest dataset of United States of America (US) Biology stipends 3, and lower than the United Kingdom (UK) stipend. University endowment correlates with minimum stipend amount but intra- and inter-institutional differences suggest it is not solely institutional wealth which improves graduate pay. Canada is behind comparable countries in funding the next generation of scientists. Canadians who desire higher STEM education have three options: hope for significantly higher guaranteed support from a supervisor, department, or awards; incur substantial debts; or emigrate.

Words are the building blocks of science. As our understanding of the world progresses, scientific disciplines naturally enrich their specialized vocabulary (jargon). However, in the era of interdisciplinarity, the use of jargon may hinder effective communication amongst scientists that do not share a common linguistic background. The question of how jargon limits the transmission of scientific knowledge has long been debated, but rarely addressed quantitatively. We explored the relationship between the use of jargon and citations using 21,486 articles focusing on cave research, a multidisciplinary field particularly prone to terminological specialization and where linguistic disagreement among peers is frequent. We demonstrate that the use of jargon in the title and abstract significantly reduces the number of citations a paper receives. Given that these elements are the hook to readers, we urge scientists to restrict jargon to sections of the paper where its use is unavoidable.

Despite decades of research and mitigation efforts, declines in freshwater quality resulting from anthropogenic nutrient input remain a persistent issue worldwide. Canada has the greatest number of freshwater lakes in the world, yet we have a limited understanding of the magnitude and scale at which most lakes have been affected by human activities, namely Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) alterations. In response, the NSERC Canadian Lake Pulse Network has compiled the first nationwide systematic database of lake quality metrics by surveying 664 lakes across 12 ecozones over three years. To assess the influence of catchment development on water quality and its spatial variation, we built models quantifying the association between watershed LULC and water quality. We found that agricultural and urban land use explained the greatest proportion of variation in water quality among LULC categories (R2 = 0.20-0.29). Overall, our study highlights that drivers of water quality are similar across regions; however, baseline conditions vary, so freshwater ecosystem management strategies must consider their geographic context to better predict where water quality thresholds will be surpassed.

Ecologists typically associate water quality with trophic status where oligotrophic ecosystems have excellent water quality and presumably provide more aquatic ecosystem services. However water quality is perceived differently among worldviews. Aquatic ecosystem service provisioning to the public health and agriculture sectors is determined using specific guidelines. But are these guidelines related to trophic status? Here, we developed an integrative ecosystem service framework using guideline thresholds for drinking, swimming, irrigation, suitability for livestock and aquatic wildlife in canadian rivers of varying trophic status. Drinkability was the most sensitive ecosystem service, met in 37% of cases, whereas livestock was the least, provided in 99%. Trophic status is a fair proxy for ecosystem services limited by fecal contamination as nutrients are related to human and animal populations, but not to those limited by metals. Using quantitative thresholds to assess the safe provisioning of multiple ecosystem services provides clear guidance for supporting resource management.\n\nIn a nutshellO_LIWater quality is a commonly used term in management, but the metrics that determine whether a river can safely provide various aquatic ecosystem services differ among worldviews.\nC_LIO_LIWe propose an integrative approach based on guideline thresholds to evaluate the frequency with which rivers are drinkable, swimmable, suitable for irrigation, livestock, and aquatic wildlife and compared this suitability with trophic status.\nC_LIO_LITrophic status is a fair proxy for ecosystem services limited by fecal contamination, but not for those limited by metals.\nC_LIO_LIUsing and developing more guideline thresholds provides a concrete way to assess ecosystem service provisioning that could help serve management.\nC_LI

Gaps in biodiversity protection occur in Canada due to limited jurisdiction of federal species-at-risk laws and the absence of dedicated legislation in many provinces, including British Columbia (B.C.). While lacking legal protection, B.C. maintains Red, Blue, and Yellow Lists of threatened, special-concern, and secure species, respectively, using a NatureServe ranking system. We compiled historical data on species status in B.C. between 2008 and 2024 from the B.C. Conservation Data Centre. B.C. is home to 5,485 Yellow, 1,116 Blue, 491 Red-listed species. Changes in status over this time period were reported for 967 animal species, with an even split in uplistings (more imperiled) and downlistings (less imperiled). More status changes were reported for plants (2,902), mainly due to updated methodology leading to a lower risk status. Analysing the accompanying explanation for each status change revealed that most changes were non-genuine (e.g., new information, taxonomy, or methodology) rather than genuine (e.g., true changes in population size, range, or threats). Genuine improvements in the status of species in B.C. have been exceedingly rare. This analysis indicates that current laws and regulations have been insufficient to recover species at risk within B.C. Plain-language summaryBritish Columbia is the most biodiverse province in Canada, yet 1,607 species are imperiled in the province. We analysed trends, finding a 16% rise in the number of species at risk since 2008. By analysing the provided explanations, we found that status improvements were mostly "non-genuine", caused by changing methodology and/or new data. Strengthening legal protections is essential to prevent biodiversity loss in the province.

Governments around the world have acknowledged the importance of conserving ecological connectivity to help reverse the decline of biodiversity. In this study we employed recent methodological developments in circuit theory to conduct the first pan-Canadian analysis of multi-species connectivity for all terrestrial regions of the country, at a spatial grain sufficient to support local land-management decisions. We developed a movement cost surface with a limited number of thematic categories using the most recently updated land cover data available for the country. We divided the country into 17 tiles and used a wall-to-wall, omnidirectional mode of Circuitscape on each tile in order to assess ecological connectivity throughout entire landscapes as opposed to strictly among protected areas. The resulting raw current density map of Canada revealed heterogenous patterns of current density across the country, strongly influenced by geography, natural barriers, and human development. We included a validation analysis of the output current density map with independent wildlife data from across the country and found that mammal and herpetofauna locations were predicted by areas of high current density. We believe our current density map can be used to identify areas important for connectivity throughout Canada and thereby contribute to efforts to conserve biodiversity.

Several metrics exists to evaluate the impact of publications and researchers, but most are based on citation counts, which usually fail to capture the temporal aspect of citations. Time to first citation represents a useful metric for research evaluation, and informs the speed at which scientific knowledge is disseminated through the scientific community. Understanding which factors affect such metrics is important as they impact resource allocation and career progression, besides influencing knowledge promotion across disciplines. Many ecological works rely on species identity, which is the coin of taxonomy. Despite its importance, taxonomy is a discipline in crisis lacking staff, funds and prestige, which ultimately may affect the evaluation and dissemination of taxonomic works. We used a time-to-event analysis to investigate whether taxonomic, socioeconomic, and scientometric factors influence first citation speed across hundreds of ecological and taxonomic articles. Time to first citation differed greatly between these areas. Ecological studies were first cited much faster than taxonomic studies. Multitaxa articles received first citations earlier than studies focused on single major taxonomic groups. Article length and h-index among authors were negatively correlated with time to first citation, while the number of authors, number of countries, and Gross Domestic Product was unimportant. Knowledge dissemination is faster for lengthy, multitaxa, and ecological articles relative to their respective counterparts, as well as for articles with highly prolific authors. We stress that using several unrelated metrics is desirable when evaluating research from different-and even related-disciplines, particularly in the context of professional progression and grant allocation.

Crayfish are well known to many but not often newsworthy, so cases where crayfish are covered in international news provide an example of how science journalism covers a news story about basic research. Headlines have a disproportionately large influence on peoples factual knowledge and perceptions of stories covered in media. I tracked online media coverage of one scientific paper involving marbled crayfish and analyzed the headlines used by the articles. Articles were framed as "news," but almost no headlines contained "new" facts that first appeared in the target scientific paper. The fact that appeared in the most headlines (that marbled crayfish reproduce by cloning) was over a decade old. Headlines misled readers into thinking a "breakthrough" was made by one team, rather than showing incremental advances by many teams of researchers over years.

Academic journals use peer review to weed out false information, but peer review and other editorial processes are normally confidential. Therefore, individuals sometimes create hoaxes to test whether editorial processes are as robust as they are claimed, or whether they are done at all. This article tracks the occurrence of hoaxes aimed at scholarly publishers and academic conferences since 2000. Since 2009, successful hoaxes usually appeared at a year of one or more a year, usually motivated by academics or journalists exposing so-called "predatory" journals. The apparent rise in the number of hoaxes reflects a lack of transparency in editorial processes at both legitimate and "predatory" journals. Reaction of academic communities to hoaxes varies widely depending on the perceived intent of the target of the hoaxes and whether the hoax demonstrates what the hoaxer claims.

Scientists are fallable and biased, but accuracy can be assessed through empirical analysis of published work that quantifies in-text citation (or quotation) errors. In scientific conflicts, it can be difficult for outsiders to know whose evidence or interpretation to trust. In-text citation error rate can assist decision- and policy-making bodies, as well as the courts when conflicts reach the judicial branch of government, by quantifying absolute and relative accuracy of scientists presenting scientific evidence. I propose the use of in-text citation error rates as a scientometric tool to quantify the accuracy of an authors work. In-text citation error rates in excess of an established overall mean (e.g., 11% for minor errors and 7% for major errors in ecology), or differences in in-text citation error rates between opposing groups of scientists could be used to reveal excessive inaccuracies in an author or group. The spotted owl (Strix occidentalis) has been at the center of a multi-decadal conflict caused by competition among people over forest resources, with scientific experts representing opposing stakeholders often presenting conflicting evidence. I applied the in-text citation error rate tool to important papers in the spotted owl and forest fire debate and found evidence of greater error rates in works on one side of this debate. In-text citation error rate can be an effective tool for quantifying accuracy among scientists.

The Whooping Crane (Grus americana) is one of North Americas most endangered species. There is only one wild, self-sustaining migratory population of Whooping Cranes, the Aransas-Wood Buffalo population (AWBP). The birds of the AWBP migrate 4,000 km twice each year between their nesting grounds in northern Canada and their wintering grounds on the Texas Gulf Coast. During migration, AWBP Whooping Cranes must land at suitable ponds or wetlands to forage, rest or roost. The Whooping Crane Recovery Plan, developed by federal wildlife agencies in Canada and the USA, calls for the protection and management of Whooping Crane stopover locations within the migration corridor. Although major stopover areas have been protected, many other smaller sites remain to be identified. However, the Recovery Plan offers no specific entity to identify, protect and manage the latter. To address these deficiencies in information and activity, Friends of the Wild Whoopers partnered with the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) within the AWBP migration corridor to share information about Whooping Cranes and their habitat needs and identify potential stopover locations on USACE properties that could be protected and managed for cranes. This partnership identified 624 potential stopover sites on 34 USACE lakes, principally in North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, with commitments to manage the habitats as resources allow.

Retractions are among the effective measures to strengthen the self-correction of science and the quality of the literature. When it comes to self-retractions for honest errors, exposure of ones own failures is not a trivial matter for researchers. However, self-correcting data, results and/or conclusions has increasingly been perceived as good research practice, although rewarding such practice challenges traditional models of research assessment. In this context, it is timely to investigate who have self-retracted for honest error in terms of country, field, and gender. We show results on these three factors, focusing on gender, as data is scarce on the representation of female scientists in efforts to set the research record straight. We collected 3,822 retraction records, including research articles, review papers, meta-analyses, letters, and others, from the Retraction Watch Database (2010-2021). We screened the dataset collected for research articles retracted for honest error, excluding retractions by publishers, editors, or third parties, and those mentioning any investigation issues. We then categorized the records according to country, field, and gender, after selecting research articles with a sole corresponding author. Our results show that female scientists account for 25% of self-retractions for honest error, with the highest share for women affiliated with US institutions.

Freshwater ecosystems are amongst the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. They are subject to intense and increasing threats and have a higher proportion of threatened and extinct species than terrestrial or marine realms. Concurrently, freshwater ecosystems are largely underrepresented in both conservation research and actions arguably as a consequence of less popularity and promotion. To test this assumption, we used cover images as a proxy of exposure and promotion opportunities provided by conservation journals. We collected information on cover images of 18 conservation journals from 1997 to 2016 and data on citations and Altmetric scores of papers published in them. We found that freshwater ecosystems (10.4%) were featured less often than marine (15.2%) or terrestrial (74.4%) ecosystems on covers of these journals. All 15 most featured species are from terrestrial or marine ecosystems, with 14 of them being large vertebrates such as elephants, big cats, rhinos, polar bears, and marine turtles. None of the 95 species featured more than once on the covers of conservation journals spend their whole life history in fresh waters, i.e. they are at least partly associated with terrestrial or marine ecosystems. Our results indicated that cover-featured studies received more attention from academia and the general public, i.e. showed higher citations and Altmetric scores, than non-featured ones within the same issue. By featuring freshwater species and habitats on covers, therewith providing more exposure opportunities, conservation journals hold the potential to promote biodiversity conservation in fresh waters. Scientists can help that endeavour by submitting freshwater-related photos together with their manuscripts for review, therewith providing more options for editors to portray freshwater species and habitats and to ultimately raise awareness and appreciation of freshwater life.

From 1900 to 1932 a copper (Cu) mill operated near Gay, Michigan, along the eastern shore of the Keweenaw Peninsula (Lake Superior, Michigan) and discharged waste material (stamp sands [SS]) to a nearby beach. These SS escaped containment structures and have been redeposited by wave action along the beaches in northern Grand Traverse Bay and onto Buffalo Reef, an important spawning area for native fish. Newly hatched fish move into nearby beach habitats where they grow during their first summer. Juvenile fish initially consume zooplankton before switching to benthic invertebrates once they are large enough. SS contain metals (especially Cu) that are toxic to many invertebrate taxa, and studies have observed few benthic taxa in areas covered by SS. We sampled the invertebrate community from four Lake Whitefish nursery areas: one near Buffalo Reef with high SS, one south of the Traverse River with moderate SS, one in nearby Little Traverse Bay with little SS, and a beach [~]58 km away with no SS (Big Bay). We also resampled the benthos at sites that had been sampled as part of an earlier Grand Traverse Bay study. Buffalo Reef (high SS) had fewer benthic taxa, and less density of several taxa than Little Traverse Bay (little SS), especially benthic copepods. All beaches had comparable zooplankton diversity, but the abundance was [~]2 orders of magnitude lower at Buffalo Reef (high SS) than other beaches. Cu and several other metals were elevated at beaches with more SS. We found support for associations between benthic density and diversity with depth (positive effect) and Cu concentration (negative effect). Cu concentration was a better predictor of declines in benthic invertebrate abundance and diversity than SS. We also observed that the relationship between Cu concentration and SS was non-linear, and highly variable. For example, 149 mg Cu/kg dry weight sediment is a consensus toxicity threshold used in the literature, but the prediction interval around that concentration from our model is 26-851 mg Cu/kg dry weight. A better predictive model of this relationship would be beneficial to develop to understand what level of SS reduction would prevent Cu impacts on invertebrates.

Protecting habitat of species-at-risk is critical to their recovery, but can be contentious. For example, protecting species that are locally imperilled but globally common (e.g. species that only occur in a jurisdiction at the edge of their geographic range) is often thought to distract from protecting globally-imperilled species. However, such perceived trade-offs are based on the assumption that threatened groups have little spatial overlap, which is rarely quantified. Here, we compile range maps of terrestrial species-at-risk in Canada to assess the geographic overlap of nationally and globally at-risk species with each other, among taxonomic groups, and with protected areas. While many nationally-at-risk taxa only occurred in Canada at their northern range edge (median=4% of range in Canada), nationally-at-risk species were not significantly more peripheral in Canada than globally-at-risk species. Further, 56% of hotspots of nationally-at-risk taxa were also hotspots of globally-at-risk taxa in Canada, undercutting the perceived trade-off in their protection. Hotspots of nationally-at-risk taxa also strongly overlapped with hotspots of individual taxonomic groups, though less so for mammals. While strong spatial overlap across threat levels and taxa should facilitate efficient habitat protection, <7% of the area in Canadas at-risk hotspots is protected, and more than 70% of nationally and globally-at-risk species in Canada have <10% of their Canadian range protected. Our results counter the perception that protecting nationally vs. globally at-risk species are at odds, and identify critical areas to target as Canada strives to increase its protected areas and promote species-at-risk recovery.

BackgroundIn this new equity-driven landscape, if there is to be system-wide transformation in research funding allocation, indicators of funding allocations need to be explored. This environmental scan aims to understand how research funding for artificial intelligence (AI) has been allocated and distributed in Canada from 2011-2022. Using geographical representations, we describe and map research funding for Canadian researchers by publicly funded granting agencies and provide analyses for AI research spending since 2011 MethodologyWe developed a rapid environmental scan to create a database of all AI funded projects from the following agencies: CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC, CRC, AMS, NFRF and CFI. Using publicly available research funding reporting and agency websites, we identified through title, keyword and project summary screening, AI projects in English and French for the years 2011-2022. Principal FindingsA total of 4112 projects were identified, with the following information for each project recorded: title, year, institution, city, province, total funding, language, funding agency, funding program and primary investigator. A total of $384,933,265.74 million was allocated for publicly funded AI related projects in Canada from 2011-2022. Average funding per project was $93,612.18. The top three provinces with the most funding for all years are Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia. The top three funding agencies by total amount for all years were NSERC at $155,267,817, CIHR at $136,594,644, and CFI at $58,317,627 ConclusionThis information can assist in accountability and understanding of Canadas publicly funded research allocations, and provide information related to the distribution of such funds, thus informing equity policy strategies.

Kelp forests are among the most abundant coastal marine habitats but are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Between 2014 and 2016, an unprecedented heatwave and associated changes in trophic dynamics threatened kelp forests across the Northeast Pacific, with impacts documented from Mexico to Alaska. However, responses have varied substantially and remain poorly characterized across large stretches of coast, especially British Columbia (B.C.), which represents a significant percentage of the range of floating kelp species in the Northeast Pacific. Here, we explore variation in floating kelp (Macrocystis, Nereocystis) persistence pre- and post-heatwave across a >675 km latitudinal gradient, asking whether B.C. kelp forests are of conservation concern. We assembled and analyzed available quantitative kelp data, comparing snapshots of kelp extent before (1994 - 2007) and after (2018 - 2021) the heatwave in 11 regions spanning a range of temperature and sea otter-occupancy statuses, and contextualizing these with time series analyses, where available (n = 7 regions). We provide strong evidence that kelp forests have declined in many regions but with evidence of refugia at both local and regional scales. Kelp forest persistence was negatively correlated with summer sea temperatures in southern B.C., where temperatures varied by ~6{degrees}C across sites, at times exceeding species thermal tolerances. Kelp dynamics in northern regions appeared instead to be modulated by top-down control by urchins and sea otters. Our results demonstrate that B.C.s kelp forest have been substantially reduced in recent years but that regional and local-scale factors influence the resilience of forests to large-scale perturbations.

White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are an ecologically and economically important species in North America. Their antlers, one of their most recognizable features, are used for dominance displays, mate attraction, and defense, with size and shape being key determinants of success. Antler characteristics are influenced by a combination of genetics, age and environmental factors, notably habitat quality and resource availability. In this study, we explored how diverse environmental factors, including climate and land cover composition, impact antler size, tine configuration, and the distribution of record-scoring white-tailed deer across Ontario, Canada, using hunter-submitted data from long-term antler scoring records. We used conditional autoregressive (CAR) models to examine these relationships and found that warmer temperatures the year of harvest were positively associated with larger antlers and more record deer in a given county, while winter precipitation the year of harvest was negatively associated with these characteristics, likely due to reduced forage availability or increased energy expenditure during more severe winters. Rangeland and forest land cover types were positively associated with increased antler size and tine number. We observed no temporal changes in antler size in Ontario, contrasting with broader trends observed in North America. These results show how local environmental conditions and land cover composition influence antler traits and the distribution of record white-tailed deer, highlighting the complexity of environmental influences on trait variation.