Investigating SARS-CoV-2 Susceptibility in Animal Species: A Scoping Review.

In the early stages of response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, it was imperative for researchers to rapidly determine what animal species may be susceptible to the virus, under low knowledge and high uncertainty conditions. In this scoping review, the animal species being evaluated for SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility, the methods used to evaluate susceptibility, and comparing the evaluations between different studies were conducted. Using the PRISMA-ScR methodology, publications and reports from peer-reviewed and gray literature sources were collected from databases, Google Scholar, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), snowballing, and recommendations from experts. Inclusion and relevance criteria were applied, and information was subsequently extracted, categorized, summarized, and analyzed. Ninety seven sources (publications and reports) were identified which investigated 649 animal species from eight different classes: Mammalia, Aves, Actinopterygii, Reptilia, Amphibia, Insecta, Chondrichthyes, and Coelacanthimorpha. Sources used four different methods to evaluate susceptibility, in silico, in vitro, in vivo, and epidemiological analysis. Along with the different methods, how each source described "susceptibility" and evaluated the susceptibility of different animal species to SARS-CoV-2 varied, with conflicting susceptibility evaluations evident between different sources. Early in the pandemic, in silico methods were used the most to predict animal species susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 and helped guide more costly and intensive studies using in vivo or epidemiological analyses. However, the limitations of all methods must be recognized, and evaluations made by in silico and in vitro should be re-evaluated when more information becomes available, such as demonstrated susceptibility through in vivo and epidemiological analysis.

Monitoring, Managing, and Communicating Risk of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) in Recreational Resources across Canada.

Globally, harmful algal blooms (HABs) are on the rise, as is evidence of their toxicity. The impacts associated with blooms, however, vary across Nation states, as do the strategies and protocols to assess, monitor, and manage their occurrence. In Canada, water quality guidelines are standardized nationally, but the management strategies for HABs are not. Here, we explore current strategies to understand how to better communicate risks associated with HABs to the public. Our team conducted an environmental scan on provincial and territorial government agency protocols around HABs. Results suggest that there are variations in the monitoring, managing, and communicating of risk to the public: British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, and Quebec have well-established inter-agency protocols, and most provinces report following federal guidelines for water quality. Notably, 3 northern territories have no HABs monitoring or management protocols in place. More populous provinces use a variety of information venues (websites, social media, on site postings, and radio) to communicate risks associated with HABs, whereas others' communications are limited. To induce more collaboration on HABs monitoring and management and reduce the associated risks, creating a coherent system with consistent messaging and inter-agency communication is suggested.

Incorporating social dimensions in hydrological and water quality modeling to evaluate the effectiveness of agricultural beneficial management practices in a Prairie River Basin.

There is growing interest to develop processes for creating user-informed watershed scale models of hydrology and water quality and to assist in decision-making for balanced policies for managing watersheds. Watershed models can be enhanced with the incorporation of social dimensions of watershed management as brought forward by participants such as the perspectives, values, and norms of people that depend on the land, water, and ecosystems for sustenance, economies, and overall wellbeing. In this work, we explore the value of combining both qualitative and quantitative methods and social science data to enhance salience and legitimacy of watershed models so that end-users are more engaged. We discuss pilot testing and engagement workshops for building and testing a systems dynamics model of the Qu'Appelle Valley to gather insights from local farmers and understand their perceptions of Beneficial Management Practices (BMPs). Mixed-method workshops with agricultural producers in the Qu'Appelle Watershed gathered feedback on the developing model and the incorporation of social determinants affecting decision-making. Analysis of focus groups and factor analysis of Q-sorts were used to identify the desired components of the model, and whether it supported farmers' understanding of the potential effects of BMPs on water quality. We explored farmers' engagement with models testing BMPs and the potential of incorporating their decision processes within the model itself. Finally, we discuss the reception of the process and the practicality of the approach in providing legitimate and credible decision support tools for a community of farmers.

Identifying transformational space for transdisciplinarity: using art to access the hidden third.

A challenge for transdisciplinary sustainability science is learning how to bridge diverse worldviews among collaborators in respectful ways. A temptation in transdisciplinary work is to focus on improving scientific practices rather than engage research partners in spaces that mutually respect how we learn from each other and set the stage for change. We used the concept of Nicolescu's "Hidden Third" to identify and operationalize this transformative space, because it focused on bridging "objective" and "subjective" worldviews through art. Between 2014 and 2017, we explored the engagement of indigenous peoples from three inland delta regions in Canada and as a team of interdisciplinary scholars and students who worked together to better understand long-term social-ecological change in those regions. In working together, we identified five characteristics associated with respectful, transformative transdisciplinary space. These included (1) establishing an unfiltered safe place where (2) subjective and objective experiences and (3) different world views could come together through (4) interactive and (5) multiple sensory experiences. On the whole, we were more effective in achieving characteristics 2-5-bringing together the subjective and objective experiences, where different worldviews could come together-than in achieving characteristic 1-creating a truly unfiltered and safe space for expression. The novelty of this work is in how we sought to change our own engagement practices to advance sustainability rather than improving scientific techniques. Recommendations for sustainability scientists working in similar contexts are provided.

Self-reported Effects of Water on Health in First Nations Communities in Saskatchewan, Canada: Results From Community-Based Participatory Research.

Water-related health challenges on First Nations reserves in Canada have been previously documented. Our objective was to describe factors associated with self-reported health effects from tap water in 8 First Nations reserve communities in Saskatchewan, Canada. Community-based participatory approaches were used in designing and implementing cross-sectional household surveys. Individual, household, community, and contextual effects were considered in multilevel analysis. Negative health effects from tap water were reported by 28% of households (n = 579). Concerns about environmental factors affecting water quality (odds ratio [OR] = 3.4, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.8-6.7), rarely or never drinking tap water (OR = 2.9, 95% CI = 1.3-6.6), insufficient tap water (OR = 3.0, 95% CI = 1.4-6.3), paying for bottled water (OR = 3.2, 95% CI = 1.2-8.7), and dissatisfaction with tap water were associated with self-reported health effects (n = 393); however, the effect of dissatisfaction was modified by respondent age (P = .03). Quality and availability were associated with perceptions of health effects from drinking water, providing additional information on how ongoing concerns about drinking water influence self-reported health in some First Nations.

Bridging science and traditional knowledge to assess cumulative impacts of stressors on ecosystem health.

Cumulative environmental impacts driven by anthropogenic stressors lead to disproportionate effects on indigenous communities that are reliant on land and water resources. Understanding and counteracting these effects requires knowledge from multiple sources. Yet the combined use of Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Scientific Knowledge (SK) has both technical and philosophical hurdles to overcome, and suffers from inherently imbalanced power dynamics that can disfavour the very communities it intends to benefit. In this article, we present a 'two-eyed seeing' approach for co-producing and blending knowledge about ecosystem health by using an adapted Bayesian Belief Network for the Slave River and Delta region in Canada's Northwest Territories. We highlight how bridging TK and SK with a combination of field data, interview transcripts, existing models, and expert judgement can address key questions about ecosystem health when considerable uncertainty exists. SK indicators (e.g., bird counts, mercury in fish, water depth) were graded as moderate, whereas TK indicators (e.g., bird usage, fish aesthetics, changes to water flow) were graded as being poor in comparison to the past. SK indicators were predominantly spatial (i.e., comparing to other locations) while the TK indicators were predominantly temporal (i.e., comparing across time). After being populated by 16 experts (local harvesters, Elders, governmental representatives, and scientists) using both TK and SK, the model output reported low probabilities that the social-ecological system is healthy as it used to be. We argue that it is novel and important to bridge TK and SK to address the challenges of environmental change such as the cumulative impacts of multiple stressors on ecosystems and the services they provide. This study presents a critical social-ecological tool for widening the evidence-base to a more holistic understanding of the system dynamics of multiple environmental stressors in ecosystems and for developing more effective knowledge-inclusive partnerships between indigenous communities, researchers and policy decision-makers. This represents new transformational empirical insights into how wider knowledge discourses can contribute to more effective adaptive co-management governance practices and solutions for the resilience and sustainability of ecosystems in Northern Canada and other parts of the world with strong indigenous land tenure.

Drinking water quality in Indigenous communities in Canada and health outcomes: a scoping review.

BACKGROUND: Many Indigenous communities in Canada live with high-risk drinking water systems and drinking water advisories and experience health status and water quality below that of the general population. A scoping review of research examining drinking water quality and its relationship to Indigenous health was conducted. OBJECTIVE: The study was undertaken to identify the extent of the literature, summarize current reports and identify research needs. DESIGN: A scoping review was designed to identify peer-reviewed literature that examined challenges related to drinking water and health in Indigenous communities in Canada. Key search terms were developed and mapped on five bibliographic databases (MEDLINE/PubMED, Web of Knowledge, SciVerse Scopus, Taylor and Francis online journal and Google Scholar). Online searches for grey literature using relevant government websites were completed. RESULTS: Sixteen articles (of 518; 156 bibliographic search engines, 362 grey literature) met criteria for inclusion (contained keywords; publication year 2000-2015; peer-reviewed and from Canada). Studies were quantitative (8), qualitative (5) or mixed (3) and included case, cohort, cross-sectional and participatory designs. In most articles, no definition of "health" was given (14/16), and the primary health issue described was gastrointestinal illness (12/16). Challenges to the study of health and well-being with respect to drinking water in Indigenous communities included irregular funding, remote locations, ethical approval processes, small sample sizes and missing data. CONCLUSIONS: Research on drinking water and health outcomes in Indigenous communities in Canada is limited and occurs on an opportunistic basis. There is a need for more research funding, and inquiry to inform policy decisions for improvements of water quality and health-related outcomes in Indigenous communities. A coordinated network looking at First Nations water and health outcomes, a database to store and create access to research findings, increased funding and time frames for funding, and more decolonizing and community-based participatory research aimed at understanding the relationship between drinking water quality and health outcomes in First Nations communities in Canada are needed.

Whiteboard animation for knowledge mobilization: a test case from the Slave River and Delta, Canada.

OBJECTIVE: To present the co-creation of a whiteboard animation video, an enhanced e-storytelling technique for relaying traditional knowledge interview results as narratives. DESIGN: We present a design for translating interview results into a script and accompanying series of figures, followed by technical steps to create a whiteboard animation product. METHOD: Our project used content analysis and researcher triangulation, followed by a collaborative process to develop an animated video to disseminate research findings. A 13-minute long whiteboard animation video was produced from a research study about changing environments in northern Canadian communities and was distributed to local people. Three challenging issues in the video creation process including communication issues, technical difficulties and contextual debate were resolved among the supporting agencies and researchers. CONCLUSIONS: Dissemination of findings is a crucial step in the research process. Whiteboard animation video products may be a viable and culturally-appropriate form of relaying research results back to Indigenous communities in a storytelling format.