Footprint of mines on soil biodiversity

This project aims at determining the offsite footprint of mines on diversity and ecosystem processes in boreal ecosystems using various properties of the soil, water, and sediment as indicators. These indicators include bacterial, fungal and invertebrate communities characterized using a metabarcoding approach. The study sites are located in the boreal vegetation zone of the Abitibi-Temiscamingue and Nord-du-Quebec regions and focuses on six mines at different stages of the mine lifecycle (i.e., from establishment to restoration) as well as control sites.