Trina Rytwinski

Carleton University · Department of Biology

Environmental managers and policy-makers need reliable evidence to make effective decisions. Systematic reviews are one way to provide this information but are time-consuming and may not meet the needs of decision-makers when faced with rapidly changing management requirements or transient policy-windows. Rapid reviews are one type of knowledge syn...

Freshwater ecosystems face numerous threats, including habitat alteration, invasive species, pollution, over extraction of resources, fragmentation, and climate change. When these threats intensify and/or combine with each other, their impacts can shift the ecosystem past a tipping point, producing a major and potentially irreversible shift in stat...

Ecosystems experiencing pressures are at risk of rapidly transitioning (‘tipping’) from one state to another. Identifying and managing these so-called tipping points continues to be a challenge in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems, particularly when multiple potentially interacting drivers are present. Knowledge of tipping points, the...

The establishment of protected areas is a cornerstone of conservation, but permanent protection could be inefficient or even impossible in some situations. Here we synthesize the literature on temporary conserved areas (TCAs) across North America (Canada, the United States, and Mexico). We used a comprehensive search string to retrieve peer‐reviewe...

Assisted migration entails the human assisted movement of individuals to more climatically-suitable areas within or outside of their current species range to help species respond to climate change. To better understand the potential for assisted migration to benefit species threatened by climate change, we conducted an evidence synthesis to map exa...

We conducted a systematic review on the impacts of natural causes of variation or changes in flow magnitude (resulting from climatic variability and broad‐scale drivers such as climate‐induced change) on fish abundance and biomass in temperate regions. Following our systematic review protocol (Birnie‐Gauvin et al., 2021), we examined commercially p...

Community science (“citizen science”) represent a potentially abundant and inexpensive source of information for biodiversity research. However, analyzing such data has inherent challenges. To explore where and how community science data are translated into scientific knowledge, we conducted a literature review in a sample of 334 peer-reviewed scie...

In response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic there has been an increased need for personal and environmental decontamination to aid in curbing transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Products used for this purpose include sanitizers for hands and disinfectants for surfaces. The active chemical ingredients used in these products, termed antimicr...

Freshwater biodiversity is in a state of crisis. The recent development of a global emergency recovery plan to “bend the curve” for freshwater biodiversity lacks the necessary details for implementation in a regional context. Using Canada as an example, we describe a toolbox intended to equip decision-makers and practitioners with evidence-based to...

Early definitions of conservation focused largely on the end goals of protection or restoration of nature, and the various disciplinary domains that contribute to these ends. Conservation science and practice has evolved beyond being focused on just issues of scarcity and biodiversity decline. To better recognize the inherent links between human be...

Environmental decisions related to policy and practice should be based on the best available evidence. Given the vast amounts of information of varying reliability, an ongoing challenge for decision-makers is how to access, collate, and use this information. The Collaboration for Environmental Evidence (CEE) is dedicated to the synthesis of environ...

Temperature is critical in regulating virtually all biological functions in fish. Low temperature stress (cold shock/stress) is an often‐overlooked challenge that many fish face as a result of both natural events and anthropogenic activities. Here we present an updated review of the cold shock literature based on a comprehensive literature search,...

Altering the natural flow regime, an essential component of healthy fluvial systems, through hydropower operations has the potential to negatively impact freshwater fish populations. Establishing improved management of flow regimes requires better understanding of how fish respond to altered flow components, such as flow magnitude. Based on the res...

Human activities are driving a global biodiversity crisis. In response, a broad range of conservation actions have been implemented. With finite resources available, and a rapidly narrowing window, the scientific and policy communities have acknowledged the need to better understand the effectiveness of interventions for conserving threatened speci...

The knowledge‐action gap in conservation science and practice occurs when research outputs do not result in actions to protect or restore biodiversity. Among the diverse and complex reasons for this gap, three barriers are fundamental: knowledge is often unavailable to practitioners, challenging to interpret, and/or difficult to use. Problems of av...

Knowing the distribution of migratory species at different stages of their life cycle is necessary for their effective conservation. For the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus), although its overwintering distribution is well known, the available information on premigration distribution is limited to the studies estimating the natal origins of ove...

Successful incorporation of scientific knowledge into environmental policy and decisions is a significant challenge. Although studies on how to bridge the knowledge-action gap have proliferated over the last decade, few have investigated the roles, responsibilities, and opportunities for funding bodies to meet this challenge. In this study we prese...

Little is known about the current state of freshwater biodiversity in Canada, one of the countries with the greatest amount of surface waters in the world. To address this knowledge gap, we compiled a list of all available assessments of conservation status for freshwater species (over 3,000 taxa) and further evaluated the overall status of six dis...

Natural flow regimes play important roles in maintaining the ecological integrity and diversity of aquatic ecosystems. Wildlife has adapted over time to the natural dynamics of their environment, including changes in flow regimes. Changes in flow, including changes in magnitude, frequency, duration, timing and rate of change, may affect the physica...

Abstract Freshwater biodiversity loss is one of the greatest environmental threats in our changing world. Although declines have been reported extensively in the literature, much less attention has been devoted to solving the freshwater biodiversity crisis relative to other ecosystems. The recently proposed Emergency Recovery Plan for Freshwater Bi...

Authorship should acknowledge and reward those deserving of such credit. Moreover, being an author on a paper also means that one assumes ownership of the content. Journals are increasingly requiring author roles to be specified at time of submission using schemes such as the contributor roles taxonomy (CRediT) system, which relies on 14 different...

Human activities and development have contributed to declines in biodiversity across the globe. Understanding and addressing biodiversity loss will require the mobilization of diverse knowledge systems. While calls for interdisciplinary practices in environmental research date back decades, there has been a more recent push for weaving multiple kno...

Captive breeding programs are widely applied by conservation practitioners as a means of conserving, reintroducing, and supplementing populations of imperilled freshwater fishes and mussels. We conducted a systematic map to provide an overview of the existing literature base on the effectiveness of captive breeding and release programs. A key findi...

Practitioners and policymakers working in environmental arenas make decisions that can have large impacts on ecosystems. Basing such decisions on high‐quality evidence about the effectiveness of different interventions can often maximize the success of policy and management. Accordingly, it is vital to understand how environmental professionals wor...

Successful incorporation of scientific knowledge into environmental policy and decisions is a significant challenge. Although studies on how to bridge the knowledge-action gap have grown rapidly over the last decade, few have investigated the roles, responsibilities, and opportunities for funding bodies to meet this challenge. In this study we pres...

Evidence-based decision-making often depends on some form of a synthesis of previous findings. There is growing recognition that systematic reviews, which incorporate a critical appraisal of evidence, are the gold standard synthesis method in applied environmental science. Yet, on a daily basis, environmental practitioners and decision-makers are f...

1. The ‘anthropause’, a period of unusually reduced human activity and mobility due to COVID‐19 restrictions, has serendipitously opened up unique opportunities for research on how human activities impact the environment. 2. In the field of health, COVID‐19 research has led to concerns about the quality of research papers and the underlying researc...

Evidence-based decision-making often depends on some form of a synthesis of previous findings. There is growing recognition that systematic reviews, which incorporate a critical appraisal of evidence, are the gold standard synthesis method in applied environmental science. Yet, on a daily basis, environmental practitioners and decision-makers are f...

Scientific evidence is fundamental for guiding effective conservation action to curb biodiversity loss. Yet, research resources in conservation are often wasted due to biased allocation of research effort, irrelevant or low‐priority questions, flawed studies, inaccessible research outputs, and biased or poor‐quality reporting. We outline a striking...

Background Fish injury and mortality resulting from entrainment and/or impingement during downstream passage over/through hydropower infrastructure has the potential to cause negative effects on fish populations. The primary goal of this systematic review was to address two research questions: (1) What are the consequences of hydroelectric dam fish...

Background There is growing evidence of the potential negative consequences of altered flow regimes, in terms of magnitude, frequency, timing, duration or season pattern, on fluvial ecosystems and the fisheries they support. The scientific and policy communities have acknowledged the need for a better understanding of the effects of flow alteration...

Background Natural flow regimes are an essential component of healthy fluvial systems, but hydropower production alters flow components, disrupting natural processes and impacting species reliant on them. Establishing improved management of flow regimes requires a better understanding of how fish respond to altered flow components, such as flow mag...

Environmental decision-makers and practitioners need and deserve high quality environmental evidence for effective decision-making. We collate and share a suite of best practices for applied environmental researchers to support their capacity to inform such decision-making processes. This raises a number of important questions: What does “relevant”...

Roads and traffic impacts on wildlife populations are well documented. Three major mechanisms can cause them: reduced connectivity, increased mortality and reduced habitat quality. Researchers commonly recommend mitigation based on the mechanism they deem responsible. We reviewed the 2012–2016 literature to evaluate authors' inferences, to determin...

Teaching can be a rewarding, yet challenging, experience for early career researchers (ECRs) in fields like ecology and evolution. Much of this challenge arises from the reality that ECRs in ecology and evolution typically receive little, if any, pedagogical training or advice on how to balance teaching, research (which can include extended field w...

Abstract Background Captive breeding programs are one of the many tools used by conservation practitioners as a means of conserving, supporting, and supplementing populations of imperilled species. Captive breeding programs exist around the globe for freshwater mussels and fishes, but the availability of evidence exploring the effectiveness of thes...

Discussions around the "slow science movement" abound in environmental sciences, yet they are generally counterproductive. Researchers must focus on producing robust and transparent knowledge, regardless of speed. Slow versus fast science is irrelevant - what we need is reproducible research to support evidence-based decision making and tackle urge...

Background: Habitat is the foundation for healthy and productive fisheries. For fish that require substrate for spawning , lack of appropriate spawning substrate is inherently limiting and a lack of access to suitable spawning habitat will lead to population collapse. To ensure management resources are being allocated wisely and conservation target...

Potadromous fishes are vulnerable to involuntary entrainment through hydropower turbines. However, turbines can also provide a downstream passage route for potadromous fish. Here, we review evidence for turbine entrainment and passage in potadromous fish, and evaluate the effects of these processes on upstream and downstream populations. We develop...

In aquatic systems, biological invasions can result in adverse ecological effects. Management techniques available for non-native fish removal programs (including eradication and population size control) vary widely, but include chemicals, harvest regimes, physical removal, or biological control. For management agencies, deciding on what non-native...

Meta-analysis is becoming increasingly popular in the field of ecology and environmental management. It increases the effective power of analyses relative to single studies, and allows researchers to investigate effect modifiers and sources of heterogeneity that could not be easily examined within single studies. Many systematic reviewers will set...

The recognition that we are in the distinct new epoch of the Anthropocene suggests the necessity for ecological restoration to play a substantial role in repairing the Earth's damaged ecosystems. Moreover, the precious yet limited resources devoted to restoration need to be used wisely. To do so, we call for the ecological restoration community to...

Background Habitat is the foundation for healthy and productive fisheries. For substrate spawning fish, lack of appropriate spawning substrate is inherently limiting and a lack of access to suitable spawning habitat will lead to population collapse. When specific properties of a habitat (e.g., temperature, depth, vegetation composition) are matched...

Involving stakeholders in systematic reviews is common practice and is advised in the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence (CEE) Guidelines (v.4.2). Frameworks for engaging stakeholders exist and should be used; however, there are additional lessons to be learned in a country, or region where evidence-based environmental management is an emergi...

Policy development and management decisions should be based upon the best available evidence. In recent years, approaches to evidence synthesis, originating in the medical realm (such as systematic reviews), have been applied to conservation to promote evidence-based conservation and environmental management. Systematic reviews involve a critical a...

Background Ecosystem changes from altered flows can have multiple impacts on fish, including changes to physical habitat, habitat access, food supplies, behaviour, community composition, energy expenditure, and population dynamics. There is growing evidence of the potential negative consequences of altered flow regimes on fluvial ecosystems and the...

Background This systematic review will address the need for a better understanding of the impacts of fish entrainment and impingement associated with hydroelectric dams on fish productivity in freshwater temperate environments. As the number of dams continues to increase worldwide, so too has concerns for their effects on fish populations. Fish inj...

Road traffic kills hundreds of millions of animals every year, posing a critical threat to the populations of many species. To address this problem there are more than forty types of road mitigation measures available that aim to reduce wildlife mortality on roads (road-kill). For road planners, deciding on what mitigation method to use has been pr...

Some authors have hypothesized that observed increases in small mammal populations with increasing road density (after controlling for habitat effects) are due to predation release. Predation could be reduced in areas with high road density because of negative effects of roads on predator numbers and/or hunting activity. However, there are no studi...

Lower abundance of forest birds near high traffic roads is usually attributed to traffic noise, but the potential role of traffic mortality has not been adequately tested. We tested for the effect of traffic mortality independent of traffic noise, by sampling forest birds at sites with similar traffic volume (and noise levels), that varied in the l...

An experimental approach to road mitigation that maximizes inferential power is essential to ensure that mitigation is both ecologically-effective and cost-effective. Here, we set out the need for and standards of using an experimental approach to road mitigation, in order to improve knowledge of the influence of mitigation measures on wildlife pop...

Scientifically rigorous research that produces accurate information is required to identify and mitigate the negative impacts of roads and traffic on wildlife, communities and ecosystems. The current approach to road planning and construction is not conducive to doing good science or incorporating explicit learning in the road development process....

There is growing evidence that roads and traffic reduce populations of many species and efforts to mitigate road effects are now common. To maximise understanding of road impacts and for conservation of particular species, we need to know how roads affect the viability of a group of individuals of the species rather than a single individual. Roads...

Road mortality is thought to be a leading cause of turtle population decline. However, empirical evidence of the direct negative effects of road mortality on turtle population abundance is lacking. The purpose of this study was to provide a strong test of the prediction that roads reduce turtle population abundance. While controlling for potentiall...

Habitat fragmentation studies have produced complex results that are challenging to synthesize. Inconsistencies among studies may result from variation in the choice of landscape metrics and response variables, which is often compounded by a lack of key statistical or methodological information. Collating primary datasets on biodiversity responses...

In reviews on effects of roads on animal population abundance we found that most effects are negative; however, there are also many neutral and positive responses [Fahrig and Rytwinski (Ecol Soc 14:21, 2009; Rytwinski and Fahrig (Biol Conserv 147:87-98, 2012)]. Here we use an individual-based simulation model to: (1) confirm predictions from the ex...

It has been hypothesized that mobile species should be more negatively affected by road mortality than less-mobile species because they interact with roads more often, and that species with lower reproductive rates and longer generation times should be more susceptible to road effects because they will be less able to rebound quickly from populatio...

We attempted a complete review of the empirical literature on effects of roads and traffic on animal abundance and distribution. We found 79 studies, with results for 131 species and 30 species groups. Overall, the number of documented negative effects of roads on animal abundance outnumbered the number of positive effects by a factor of 5; 114 res...

We attempted a complete review of the empirical literature on effects of roads and traffic on animal abundance and distribution. We found 79 studies, with results for 131 species and 30 species groups. Overall, the number of documented negative effects of roads on animal abundance outnumbered the number of positive effects by a factor of 5; 114 res...

While several studies have demonstrated that roads can act as barriers to small mammal movement, the relationship between road density and small mammal abundance has not yet been investigated. In southeastern Ontario, Peromyscus leucopus (white-footed mice) suffer high over-winter mortality rates, resulting in small springtime populations and frequ...