Environmental Stressors and the Mutation Process

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In Canada, metal contamination from both anthropogenic and natural sources remains a serious threat to the health of both aquatic environments, and the people and economies relying on them. Many of the Canadian Shield lakes experience multiple anthropogenic stressors such as acidification, calcium depletion, invasive species, and a steady increase in both organic and inorganic contaminants. Among the multitude of natural and anthropogenic stressors, metal pollution is of particular concern. Moreover, the increased mining activities in the northern parts of Canada generate a pressing need to understand how metal pollution affects the long term sustainability of freshwater ecosystems and to study metal contamination in the context of other environmental stressors such as calcium decline. The proposed research will investigate the long-term mutagenic consequences of low, non-lethal concentrations of metals (e.g., Ni, Cu, Ni + Cu), the fitness properties of metal-induced mutations, and the ability of populations to evolve metal tolerance using approaches that integrate ecological, evolutionary, genomic, toxicological perspectives and Daphnia pulex as a model species. These studies will provide unprecedented insights into the complex linkages between low chronic metal exposure and its effects on genome stability and the long term health of natural populations. The interdisciplinary approaches will also enable the investigation of the genetic basis of evolved metal tolerance in natural populations. The long-term mutation accumulation experiments coupled with population genetics and field studies on contaminated and uncontaminated habitats will provide novel resources for understanding the metal-induced mutation process at the population level. The proposed projects provide an excellent opportunity for multidisciplinary and collaborative training at both graduate and undergraduate levels.