Boreal Ecology Article Review: "Potential impacts of clearcutting on parasites of minnows in small boreal lakes"

This is a review for the article: "Potential impacts of clearcutting on parasites of minnows in small boreal lakes".

David J. Carcogliese is associated with St. Lawrence Centre and Environment Canada in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

This paper describes an experiment done to describe the correlation between lake parasites and deforestation around the lake. The results was that when there was clear-cut or partially clear-cut of trees around the lake, it increased erosion (which may have partially went into the lake as runoffs), increased water temperature, altered water chemistry, and modified watershed hydrology, and affected the number and types of parasites in the lakes – for example, parasite species R. Canadensis was absent in clear-cut lakes. The paper supports the idea that deforestation reduces the parasite infracommunity complexity in lakes.

The major strength of the paper is its procedure; while being careful not to miss any data, it also admits its mistakes in a brief manner – while it does not make the readers think the experiment is totally invalid, it allows for the reader to do his/her own evaluation and judgement of the experiment.  However, the major weakness is that this paper is biased to support its own hypothesis; the data of the charts clearly show that there were increases in at least two taxa (some in very large parasite quantities), it focuses on the absence of R. Canadensis (also assumes that mayflies, its host, declined without sufficient proof), not to mention the errors in the experiment, and assumes false conclusion that clear-cutting may reduce the number of parasite taxa. Despite my opinion of the procedure being descriptive, I evaluate this paper as unreliable source of data due to the major weaknesses pointed out above.

This experiment was done in boreal forests around lakes; in class we’ve covered how the presence of boreal forests affects larger organisms. This paper may broaden students' understanding of how clear-cutting boreal forests may affect smaller aquatic organisms. As already mentioned, I think this paper has excellent procedure – while being simple, it is descriptive and it is something college students can perform; its techniques may be a good learning source.

Source Cited: 
“Potential impacts of clearcutting on parasites of minnows in small boreal lakes,” David J. Marcogliese, Mark Ball, Murray W. Lankester, 48: 269-274, 2001.