Supervised by:

Dominique Gravel (Regular member)

Research project description

Modeling the metaweb of Nunavik using a Bayesian framework under the lense of TwoEyed-Seeing.

IntroductionSouthern species dispersing North due to climate change will affect species composition in northern ecosystems (Saulnier-Talbot et al., 2023). Consequently, interactions between species will likely change. To understand how these range changes will affect current northern foodwebs, it is important to better understand them first.ObjectivesOur goal is to better understand the meta-foodweb of Nunavik. We wish to model the interactions between predators and preys, namely land vertebrates and their ecosystem. We believe this will allow us to predict novel interactions between invading and current species.Study sitesWe would like to do our research in Salluit, Nunavik. We chose this community because I have intimate knowledge of it and its inhabitants, an advantage when working with Inuit communities (Robards et al., 2018). Also, the Centre d’Étude en recherche Nordique has lodging infrastructures in Salluit, which will help simplify logistics and reduce research funds.Material and methodsUnder the lense of Two-Eyed-Seeing, a philosophy that promotes adressing a problem with both the strengths of Indeginious and Western Knowledge (Bartlette et al., 2012), we wish to define the probability of interaction between each species pair with uncertainty values. To define said probabilities, we wish to use a bayesian framework (Cirtwill et al., 2019). Our priors would be a combination of Western and Inuit traditionnal knowledge as well as an already established but incomplete interaction matrix built by Berteaux, Ropars and Casajus (2018). For the likeliehood function, we wish to use a trait-matching function. This methodology is subject to change.References1. Bartlett, C., Marshall, M., & Marshall, A. (2012). Two-eyed seeing and other lessons learned within a co-learning journey of bringing together indigenous and mainstream knowledges and ways of knowing. Journal of environmental studies and sciences, 2, 331-340. 2. Berteaux, D., Ropars, P., Casajus, N. 2018. Toundra Nunavik : Matrice des relations trophiques entre espèces du Labrador et du Québec nordique, v. 1.0 (1980-2010). Nordicana D36, doi: 10.5885/45555CE-DA1FF11FA4254703. 3. Cirtwill, A. R., Eklöf, A., Roslin, T., Wootton, K.,