| dc.description.abstract | In Canada, over 3 million freshwater lakes provide a wide range of ecological, financial,
aesthetic, and public health services for their citizens, communities, and tourists. This is
especially true for regions like south-central Ontario, commonly referred to as ‘cottage country’,
that depend on these ecosystems directly for activity, business, and tourism. However, with
property ownership growing in the area, as well as tourism, the region is experiencing more
human development and subsequent activities associated with it. Forms of these developmental
activities include land clearing for cottage or roadway development at the shore or surrounding
watershed, installation of wells and septic systems, riparian zone alteration for aesthetic or
recreation purposes, and increases in foreign materials that are a by-product of this human
activity (like increased fertilizer use on farmland and gardens, oil or gasoline contamination and
contaminants originating from the cottages themselves). In this study, we aim to gather baseline
data on local macroinvertebrate communities and the physicochemical properties of water in
interior lakes in the Muskoka region of central Ontario, and to compare developed and isolated
lakes to assess the impact of cottage development. Using an RDA analysis, I found that, among
the water variables assessed, conductivity, pH and dissolved oxygen concentration had a
significant effect on the composition of benthic macroinvertebrate communities. [...] | en_US |
