The Arctic char, a red-pink bellied relative of trout and salmon, is a staple food source for millions of people living in the Arctic. But that dynamic is being embrangled by climate change, as the Arctic is warming two to four times faster than the rest of the world.
Marianne Falardeau, a polar marine ecologist at Universit├й T├ЙLUQ in Quebec City, Canada, studies how climate change is reshaping boreal and polar marine ecosystems and the benefits those ecosystems provide to people, aiming to help northern communities adapt to the shifting environment. In 2022, she coauthored a study showing how to make small-scale fisheries in the Arctic more resilient in the face of climate change.
Much of FalardeauтАЩs research involves working closely with Indigenous coastal communities. For another 2022 study, she and colleagues combined biophysical data from Arctic char with observations made by Inuit fishers to assess how environmental changes had shifted the timing of fish migrations over a 30-year period. The collaborative approach helped to broadly capture the influence that seasonal ice changes had on the diet and nutrient quality of fish.
тАЬIn the Arctic, there [are] Indigenous people who have been living there for millenniaтАЙтАФтАЙthey have deep knowledge about the land, the ocean, the animals, how theyтАЩre changing,тАЭ she says. тАЬMy research wouldnтАЩt be possible without these connections.тАЭ
TRANSCRIPT
Marianne Falardeau: I study marine ecosystems and fisheries of the Arctic in the context of multiple pressures. This includes climate change that is very intense in the Arctic. Arctic char, the most harvested aquatic species in the North in terms of the fisheries, really important for food security and culture. But of course, itтАЩs, as many species in the North, has been impacted by climate change and will continue to be.
ThereтАЩs a phenomenon called the Arctic amplification, where the Arctic is warming up to four times more rapidly than the rest of the world. So this has a range of biophysical impacts, including the decline of the sea ice cover. And so in turn, these climatic changes affect the plants, the animals and the humans who live in the Arctic тАФ and also beyond the Arctic. WeтАЩre all connected to this region of the world.
We bring together different lenses to study the environment, study how the Arctic is changing. So the goal is to look into social ecological systems, you know, today, but then explore what they might, how they might be in the future, to be better prepared. So we bring together experts from different fields of science, but also outside academia. So indigenous knowledge holders and managers, we get together as part of workshops to explore the future of this system.
ItтАЩs a really powerful approach that IтАЩm really excited about and hope to use as much as possible to bring different perspectives into what the future might be and how to bring about the best possible future outcomes for future generations.
I became interested into working with communities. I was very curious to know more about their knowledge of these changes. We need to work with communities around the world. In so many regions you have these coastal communities who are there year long, have observations. And in the Arctic, thereтАЩs indigenous peoples whoтАЩve been living there for millennia. They have deep knowledge about the land, the ocean, the animals, how theyтАЩre changing. So I wanted to have an approach in my Ph.D. thatтАЩs, bringing together these different, types of knowledge.
My research wouldnтАЩt be possible without these connections. ItтАЩs as central as it is. And, of course, thereтАЩs stories of ways of understanding the scientific data that we wouldnтАЩt have without working together. For example, in one of my projects, as part of the biophysical data, we were seeing that what theyтАЩre eating was more typical of the open ocean and trying to, like, make hypotheses for why we were seeing that.
And at the same time, I was doing interviews with Inuit knowledge holders, with experts, with fishers about their observations of changes. Some elders were telling me that they were observing char farther away from the shore. And they were thinking itтАЩs because the shallow water near the beaches or the shore were warming more rapidly than in deeper areas, and so the fish were hanging out more farther away from the shore.
And that could actually make sense with the biological data and the signature we were seeing in the diet. And so we were able to gather to kind of have these hypotheses that bring together their observations of fish behavior and the biological data. And these two different observations required different ways of being on the land. Of course, when youтАЩre fishing, youтАЩre there a lot of, like, all the time when you live there. And so you have these, kind of, granular observations of behaviors that, as scientists, we might miss because weтАЩre there for shorter periods of times. So this is just an example, but they had this complementarity of observations that allow to have rich understanding of whatтАЩs happening.
When youтАЩre starting as a young, you know, undergraduate student, sometimes you donтАЩt necessarily have a lot of models to look up to. And I think itтАЩs changing, but thatтАЩs how it started. ItтАЩs like, you know, trying to find models, of women in the field. You have this leaky pipeline phenomena where at the undergraduate level, you have almost 50тАУ50 percent female and male students in the universities.
And as you go up the academic ladder, you have, you know, less and less women that are able to keep going in this field because thereтАЩs more and more barriers to being a woman, being a mum in academia. But specific to my field, being in this gender involves different challenges from, you know, having your period in the field and these kinds of things that we donтАЩt necessarily talk about.
The suits are really made for men. And so you have clothing for the field thatтАЩs just made for males. And so itтАЩs small things, but just things that I think are important to think about so that people feel included in the field тАФ like, how do you make these, you know, emergency plans or first aid training inclusive of all genders. And so I think these are the kinds of discussions I think are really important. IтАЩve been trying to push for and I think is changing a lot.
ItтАЩs hard for me to know how my research impacts people because itтАЩs a long process. And in this kind of research, you have in some ways to do it because you believe in this kind of approach, but sometimes you wonтАЩt necessarily see, in a very explicit way, how it has an impact on people.
However, IтАЩm very hopeful about the future because I do see that thereтАЩs a big shift in academia and thereтАЩs a lot of changes happening to allow for this kind of process and research. And I think there is a lot of hope looking ahead in terms of the future of research.
