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Effective conservation requires that species recovery measures are informed by rigorous scientific research. For imperilled freshwater fishes and mussels in Canada, numerous research gaps exist, in part owing to the need for specialized research methods. The Canadian Freshwater Species at Risk Research Network (SARNET) was formed and identified or implemented approaches to address current research gaps, including (1) captive experimental research populations, (2) nonlethal methods for estimating abundance and distribution, (3) nonlethal field methods to measure life-history parameters, (4) species distribution models informed by co-occurring species, (5) conservation physiology to inform habitat and threat science, (6) evidence syntheses to evaluate threats and recovery measures, (7) disease-transmission models to understand mussel–host relationships, (8) experimental mesocosms and manipulative experiments to evaluate key habitat stressors, (9) threat and hazard models for predictive applications, and (10) rigorous evaluation of surrogate species. Over a dozen threat- and recovery-focused SARNET research applications are summarized, demonstrating the value of a coordinated research program between academics and government to advance scientific research on, and to support the recovery of, imperilled freshwater species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The global increase in cyanobacterial bloom reports heightens the need for a critical evaluation of models used for their prediction. In particular, it is unclear whether empirical cyanobacterial models vary regionally because of differences in environmental conditions and (or) community composition. To address this question, we applied linear and nonlinear models as well as mixed-effect models to a dataset of seasonally integrated environmental and cyanobacterial measurements collected from 149 lakes spread across three regions in Canada. Across all lakes, we found that linear models outperformed nonlinear approaches and that nutrients (phosphorus, nitrogen) were the best predictors of cyanobacterial biomass. Importantly, there was no significant regional difference in predicted cyanobacterial responses to nutrients, even though the means for these variables were different among regions. From canonical correspondence analyses of taxonomic biomass data, temperature, water column stability, and forms of inorganic nitrogen were also important in explaining cyanobacterial community structure at the regional scale. Based on these analyses, we conclude that North American models are suitable for estimating total cyanobacterial biomass from any particular temperate region in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]