Long-term changes in Wolf Lake (Sudbury region, Ontario) situated in Mi’iangan Zaagagan Preserve: a proposed Indigenous conservation area

Aquatic ecosystems in northern Ontario (Canada) have been widely studied for responses to anthropogenic activities. Specifically, the adverse effects from metal smelting has cause atmospheric deposition of acidic and metal pollution. Sudbury (Ontario) has been considerable researched for the effects of century long large-scale mining and smelting operations; however, local Indigenous freshwater resources have been largely ignored. Wolf Lake, located ~50 km northeast of Sudbury, is a culturally important site to the Wahnapitae First Nation and local community, providing many ecosystem services. Given its significance, the lake and surrounding old growth red pine (Pinus resinosa) forest is being proposed as an Other Effective area-based Conservation Measure. To determine pre-disturbance conditions to inform management decisions for the proposed conservation site, paleo-ecotoxicological approaches were applied. Here we use a multi-proxy approach of water chemistry records and sediment..., , # Long-term changes in Wolf Lake (Sudbury region, Ontario) situated in Mi’iangan Zaagagan Preserve: a proposed Indigenous conservation area

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.jwstqjqpw](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.jwstqjqpw)

## Description of the data and file structure

Data was collected between 2022-24. The sediment core was retrieved from the lake in 2022 and sectioned into 0.5 contiguous intervals. Then analyzed for sedimentary metals, diatoms, geochronology, chlorophyll-a, dissolved organic carbon, and calculated pH transfer function.

This study was conducted in collaboration and co-authored with the Wahnapitae First Nation and permitted for publication and distribution. 

### Files and variables

#### File: Diatom_Assemblage_Count_Data.csv

**Description:** Species data was collected for 35 intervals spanning the core. Minimum 500 valves were enumerated per interval. The data is reported in relative abundance. Diatoms were identified to general and species level when possible.

###...,