Transcript

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[researchers walk along tundra, helicopter in the background]
[text screen: Wapusk Measuring Water]

[ecologist John Sweetman and colleagues doing water sampling at lake’s edge]
John Sweetman: So this is a multi-parameter sonde that can measure various water quality parameters, so some physical aspects of the lake. And so it measures temperature of the water, it also measures something called conductivity which is kind of a measure of the amount of ions within the water so it’s sort of a parameter that allows us to see how productive systems like calcium, magnesium and things would make up that.

John: We also measure the oxygen of the water, and in this case it’s almost close to 100% because it’s extremely shallow and pretty windy and so it gets mixed pretty well and so you get a lot of oxygen even though the ice has just come off this lake. And then it also measures the PH of the lake so whether it’s more acidic or more basic.

John: In this case across the park because you get in towards the sort of more boggy areas, in sort of the spruce forest bog down in the south end, they tend to be more acidic but out here towards the ocean, they’re much more basic and that’s because there’s this calcareous substrate that kind of acts like a natural buffer and so these are really basic lakes. and that affects the water chemistry and what kind of organisms you might find in the lakes.

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