McGill University
Ph.D. candidate
Supervisor: Anthony Ricciardi
Zofia Taranu, Environment and Climate Change Canada
Start: 2022-09-01

Project

Temporal changes in biodiversity of St Lawrence River benthic invertebrate communities
Invasive species are among the most significant drivers of biodiversity decline worldwide, and the Great-Lakes-St. Lawrence is the most heavily invaded freshwater ecosystem in the world. Despite the significance of the St. Lawrence River little is understood on how these myriad invasions may have impacted native macroinvertebrate biodiversity. Macroinvertebrates are key components of aquatic food webs and play essential roles in ecosystem functioning. Abundances of particular groups are also commonly used for water quality assessments and biological monitoring; changes to macroinvertebrate communities driven by invasive species may be confounding these measurements. The objectives of my research are to quantify changes to the biodiversity of benthic macroinvertebrate communities in the upper St Lawrence River in recent decades and determine the role of biological invasions as potential drivers of these changes. I use a combination of field surveys, field experiments, and analyses of long-term datasets to investigate the relationships between invasive species and native macroinvertebrate communities.

Keywords

benthic ecology, invasion biology, community ecology