Turkey Lakes Watershed- Benthic Invertebrates and Stream Ecosystem Surveys

The Turkey Lakes Watershed (TLW) Study was established in 1979 by several federal government departments (Natural Resources Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada) to study the impacts of acid rain on aquatic and forest ecosystems but has since expanded to include other research on toxic contaminants, forest harvesting, habitat modification, and climate change. The TLW is a mixed hardwood forest with a 10.5 km squared area in the Canada Shield that drains into Lake Superior, and has been the focus of many interdisciplinary, whole-ecosystem studies on environmental issues. Benthic invertebrates, or insects found at the bottom of waterbodies, can be key indicators of stream health and play important roles in nutrient cycling and the food chain. In 1995, a project within the TLW aimed to evaluate how stream ecosystems respond to tree harvesting, which involved long-term surveys of benthic invertebrate communities pre- and post-harvest. Three stream catchments (c31, c33, c34) were harvested at different intensities in the summer of 1997 and were compared to multiple undisturbed catchments. Alongside the invertebrate data, corresponding stream…

Publisher

Natural Resources Canada

Resources

12

Catalogue metadata updated

2021-12-08