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[Celia] I'd just like to
acknowledge my collaborators.

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I especially wanna
acknowledge Sarah Nelson,

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who is at the Appalachian Mountain Club,

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and really, the person who started

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this entire Dragonfly Mercury Project

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many years ago in Maine,

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when she was at the University of Maine.

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And I acknowledge my collaborators here,

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Christine Gardiner, my lab
manager, and Vivian Taylor,

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who's in Earth Sciences here,
who is also a collaborator.

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So, next slide please.

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So before we get into

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the community science side of all of this,

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I just wanna kind of justify

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why so many of us spend

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a lot of our time studying mercury.

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And just in case you don't know,

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it is ranked third on the US ATSDR

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priority list of contaminants in the US.

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It's a toxin that actually affects humans

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and wildlife at low levels,

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not just at acute exposures.

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Pregnant women, children,

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and seafood consumers are most at risk,

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because really,

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our exposure is mostly
through consumption of fish;

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and 80% of the fish consumption
advisories in the US,

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which cover many different
kinds of contaminants,

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80% are for mercury.

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And to the right,

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you can see the "Alice
in Wonderland" image

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because that was the
exposure of the Mad Hatters

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were actually causing them to look mad

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from neurotoxicity from mercury,

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and the reason that we
worry about mercury in fish

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is because it bio magnifies

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in that lower cartoon, you can see.

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It bio magnifies from mercury in water,

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which is almost undetectable,

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to very high levels in predatory fish.

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Next slide please.

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So in addition to effects on humans,

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we also know that there are exposures,

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important exposures and
effects of wildlife,

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particularly obligate piscivores.

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And our very beloved common loon

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has been studied extensively

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by my colleague Dave Evers and his group,

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and they have found that
even in the common loon,

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there are been detected
aberrant incubation behaviors,

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lethargy, changes in wing asymmetry,

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and body burdens that are related

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to reduced numbers of fledged chicks.

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So we know that there are,

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from our research in general,

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that there are detrimental effects

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on populations of wildlife.

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Next slide please.

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So for those of you who don't

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spend all your time thinking
about the mercury cycle,

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I just wanted to give you
all a little background

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on where it comes from and
where it goes, and what it is.

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So when we talk about mercury,

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we're generally talking
about two main forms:

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inorganic mercury and organic mercury.

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And in organic mercury,
we call methyl mercury,

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is the toxic and most
bioavailable form of mercury,

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but it is not the form that is

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emitted and transported
in the environment.

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In the environment,

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the two forms of inorganic
mercury are elemental.

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And since I can't really point to things,

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you can look up in the
sky, there's an HG0,

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the atmospheric form is
mostly HG0, elemental mercury.

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And then if you look down

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toward where the lake is and the stream,

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we have HG2 plus, which
is oxidized mercury.

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And that's the dominant form in water.

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It isn't until that oxidized mercury

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gets into the water and into areas

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that are relatively anoxic,

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that that inorganic mercury,

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the HG2+ gets methylated

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and turned into methyl mercury.

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And if you look at the
graph on the bottom,

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or at least the bioaccumulation factors,

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you can see that from one x in water

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it goes to 10,000 x in phytoplankton.

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So that's a big step of bioaccumulation,

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from water to phytoplankton.

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And then it just keeps
on going up beyond that,

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so that the amount that in
the far right, in loons,

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is 10 million times the
concentration that was in water

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because of bioaccumulation
and bio magnification.

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Next slide please.

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So dragonflies are what we are using

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as a bio indicator of mercury exposure

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in our community science.

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And this is because dragonflies

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occupy a diverse range
of freshwater habitats.

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They have site fidelity, so
that when you find a dragonfly,

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and I'm talking about the larvae,

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they really represent where you find them.

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And so, most of you are probably familiar

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with the adults that we see around,

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especially in our region,

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we see them all over
around aquatic habitats.

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But as you see on the left,

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the lifecycle of the dragonfly,

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those adults actually lay
eggs on or in water bodies

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and then those eggs hatch into larvae,

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which is like number three to four,

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which can spend about two to three years

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in that environment,
in that stage of life.

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And then later they then molt

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and the adults emerge
from that larval stage.

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So what we are studying,

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are using as bio indicators,

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are dragonflies in their larval phase.

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And you can see on the right,

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in the bottom right corner,

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you can see these are ones that have been

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collected out of some of the habitats

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from which our community scientists

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have been collecting and measuring

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and identifying the species,

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or at least the families.

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Next slide please.

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So all around the country,

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this is being done and I'll talk about

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the national program in a moment.

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But what we see, as you might imagine,

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you might ask, well you know,

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are there the same species
all around the country?

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And of course not.

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And in fact, there are
seven different families

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that we pretty much identify;

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but really, four of
them are what have been

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focused on in the
Dragonfly Mercury project.

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So you can see on the left,

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there are all of these regressions

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that show the relationship between

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what we are calling the
Aeschnid Total Mercury,

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which is on the Y axis,

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and then whatever other family

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that is shown in the four panels,

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the dragonfly larvae, total mercury.

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And what you can see from
that is that Aeschnids,

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which is one of the families,

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the Aeschnids concentrations

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are very correlated with the ones

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that are in these other
families of dragonflies.

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And so by having that
very linear relationship,

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those of us who are actually

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looking at national patterns,

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are able to convert the concentrations

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that are found in these other families

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into an Aeschnid equivalent.

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And you can see on the bottom graph,

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the Aeschnids actually are
the highest in concentrations,

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compared to the other
families of dragonflies.

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But it's this Aeschnid equivalent

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that allows us to then
compare across sites,

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using the data that has been generated

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in some of the sites where they collected

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each Aeschnids and at least
one of the other families.

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And you can see some of them on the right,

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that's what they look like

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when they're in their larval phase.

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Next slide please.

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So, I'm first gonna just talk

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about the Dragonfly Mercury project,

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which is one a project,

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it's a citizen science framework

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for monitoring mercury
pollution in the US.

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And it's really conducted by
the National Park Service,

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so we have collaborators there,

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and very much organized
in terms of the data

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and receiving the samples and everything,

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by the US Geological Survey.

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So, next slide please?

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So this map just shows you

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the National Dragonfly Mercury Project,

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which has been going from 2009 to 2019.

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And you can see all of the circles

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are national parks all around the country,

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in which dragonflies have been collected

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by community scientists

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who are basically visiting those parks.

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And then they go out with
trained park service rangers

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and they collect and
learn about this project

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and they help to collect the samples.

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There's also a number of samples

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that are coming from
non-National Parks service sites,

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but what you can also see from this

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is the coloration is an indication

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of Mercury deposition in the US.

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And what that shows is,

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the more yellow-red color shows

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higher deposition of mercury in the US

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00:10:05,940 --> 00:10:09,180
and the blue-green is lower deposition.

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And you can see that, actually,

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the highest deposition is around

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the Midwest and the Gulf of Mexico,

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and also up in some of
the mountainous areas

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00:10:20,880 --> 00:10:23,309
in the Pacific Northwest.

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But, that said, we in the Northeast

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have also received a
lot of mercury emissions

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00:10:29,595 --> 00:10:33,093
and deposition from the Midwest.

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And also in the northeast, where we are,

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we have some of the more
mercury sensitive habitats;

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in other words areas where

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Mercury gets methylated more readily

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and taken up by our ecosystems.

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Next slide please.

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So the national scale program

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00:10:56,070 --> 00:10:59,580
has been written up kind
of recently, in 2020,

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00:10:59,580 --> 00:11:02,850
by Collin Eagles-Smith at
the US Geological Survey

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00:11:02,850 --> 00:11:05,340
and a whole bunch of our colleagues.

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00:11:05,340 --> 00:11:10,340
And this study was quite a massive effort,

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00:11:10,920 --> 00:11:12,990
to take all of the data

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00:11:12,990 --> 00:11:17,990
from what was collected
over that period of time,

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00:11:18,660 --> 00:11:22,230
from 2009 actually to 2018

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00:11:22,230 --> 00:11:24,870
at 457 unique locations,

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00:11:24,870 --> 00:11:28,737
across a hundred national
park service units.

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And it really involved
more than 4,000 volunteers,

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which is pretty remarkable.

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00:11:36,180 --> 00:11:38,280
And so I'm just gonna show you

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00:11:38,280 --> 00:11:42,630
some of the findings from this study.

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00:11:42,630 --> 00:11:44,370
Next slide please.

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00:11:44,370 --> 00:11:45,900
[Moderator] I'm just gonna
interrupt here, Celia,

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00:11:45,900 --> 00:11:48,690
we're really mandated to
stay on track time-wise,

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00:11:48,690 --> 00:11:51,630
so we just have three minutes left.

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00:11:51,630 --> 00:11:54,240
[Celia] Oh, because we started like,

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00:11:54,240 --> 00:11:55,650
-[Moderator] Yeah.
-[Celia] five minutes late,

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00:11:55,650 --> 00:11:57,570
so I will have to, okay,

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00:11:57,570 --> 00:12:00,903
well why don't I just
skip these slides then?

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00:12:01,917 --> 00:12:06,420
I would suggest you go
to the Eagles-Smith paper

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00:12:06,420 --> 00:12:08,340
in Environmental Science and Technology,

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00:12:08,340 --> 00:12:10,395
or if you have any
questions just let me know.

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00:12:10,395 --> 00:12:15,395
And why don't we go straight
on to the Dartmouth,

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00:12:16,050 --> 00:12:17,733
so I think it's slide 13.

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Yeah.

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00:12:20,610 --> 00:12:21,510
[Moderator] This one?

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00:12:21,510 --> 00:12:23,700
[Celia] No, I'm gonna skip these

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00:12:23,700 --> 00:12:25,713
because there's so little time.

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00:12:27,150 --> 00:12:28,410
Yeah, go ahead. That one.

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00:12:28,410 --> 00:12:32,399
Okay, so the Dartmouth
Dragonfly Mercury Project

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00:12:32,399 --> 00:12:37,399
ran from 2010 to just till last year.

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00:12:38,250 --> 00:12:41,580
And we focused our efforts
on taking this program,

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00:12:41,580 --> 00:12:43,590
which was developed at
the University of Maine,

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00:12:43,590 --> 00:12:45,660
to New Hampshire and Vermont high schools.

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00:12:45,660 --> 00:12:47,790
And so we collaborated with teachers,

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00:12:47,790 --> 00:12:51,270
we took students out
where they field sampled,

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00:12:51,270 --> 00:12:53,370
the samples came to us,

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00:12:53,370 --> 00:12:57,870
and we then also in the last two years,

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00:12:57,870 --> 00:13:00,090
got funding from FEMC

258
00:13:00,090 --> 00:13:03,030
to expand this particular project out

259
00:13:03,030 --> 00:13:06,990
to some of the national forests.

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00:13:06,990 --> 00:13:08,163
So, next slide.

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00:13:11,190 --> 00:13:13,803
So you can see that this is where,

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00:13:14,812 --> 00:13:15,930
in the last couple years,

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00:13:15,930 --> 00:13:20,220
our sites were inclusive of
schools and national forests,

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00:13:20,220 --> 00:13:21,510
Green Mountain National Forest,

265
00:13:21,510 --> 00:13:26,070
as well as the White
Mountain National Forest.

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00:13:26,070 --> 00:13:30,810
And we included our schools
in that, so keep going.

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00:13:30,810 --> 00:13:31,643
Next slide.

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All of these samples from
schools and from national forests

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come back to my lab here

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and they are re-identified
for a taxonomy check.

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We run Mercury on a
direct mercury analyzer

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and we do an inter calibration

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with the US Geological survey,

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so that the data can go
into the national database.

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Next slide.

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And so this is just

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a figure showing some of the data,

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and I guess I don't have time

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to talk to you much about it,

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but we have, on the right side,

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data that came in from
the National Forests

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and National Historical Parks,

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there is one site in the
Green Mountain National Forest

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that's kind of high.

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And all the ones that have asterisks

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were collected by
volunteers with our students

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and other volunteers.

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Next slide.

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Then we had a culminating symposium,

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with students coming to Dartmouth,

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and I think that was a
really kind of seminal event

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for many of the students

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and they brought all their families.

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Next slide.

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So the last two examples of this

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are one that's in the Merrimack Watershed,

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which is run by Sarah Nelson,

298
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who is now at the
Appalachian Mountain Club.

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And it is run with so many partners,

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as you can see on the left there.

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And we work with students,

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as well as park service,

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National Historic sites.

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And next slide.

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In this particular program,

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we're really able to reach

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a different kind of community,

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from what we were able to work with

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up in New Hampshire and Vermont.

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It's Lowell and Lawrence, Massachusetts,

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our environmental justice communities,

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00:15:23,490 --> 00:15:25,380
and so we have a much more

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diverse population of students

314
00:15:28,680 --> 00:15:30,450
as well as community members

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00:15:30,450 --> 00:15:34,560
who are involved in
this particular project.

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And then, I think next slide?

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And then the last slide
about the projects,

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00:15:40,560 --> 00:15:44,790
is we've also just expanded in 23 to 24,

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up into the Lake Champlain watershed

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00:15:47,040 --> 00:15:48,060
and we have been working

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00:15:48,060 --> 00:15:51,600
with the Lake Champlain
Watershed Alliance.

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And so that is taking this project

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to a new region of our region.

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00:15:59,940 --> 00:16:03,660
And lastly, I must acknowledge,

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00:16:03,660 --> 00:16:06,690
especially our collaborators,

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00:16:06,690 --> 00:16:08,610
but also the funding sources

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00:16:08,610 --> 00:16:12,330
which have been funding different parts

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00:16:12,330 --> 00:16:15,690
of this overall regional program;

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00:16:15,690 --> 00:16:18,780
including NIH and Wellborn Foundation,

330
00:16:18,780 --> 00:16:20,550
FEMC as I mentioned earlier,

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00:16:20,550 --> 00:16:22,560
the US EPA, Parker Foundation,

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00:16:22,560 --> 00:16:24,000
Lake Champlain Basin Program

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00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:25,890
and Lake Champlain Sea Grant.

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00:16:25,890 --> 00:16:28,413
So, I think I used up my time.

335
00:16:30,900 --> 00:16:32,700
And probably have no time for questions,

336
00:16:32,700 --> 00:16:36,123
but feel free to put them
in a chat and I can respond.

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00:16:36,990 --> 00:16:38,580
[Moderator] Yeah, we do
have time for one question.

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00:16:38,580 --> 00:16:39,420
People can leave too,

339
00:16:39,420 --> 00:16:41,913
but we can take one
question if anybody has any.

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00:16:42,810 --> 00:16:44,160
[Audience Member] How reliable do you find

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00:16:44,160 --> 00:16:45,993
the data that students collect?

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00:16:46,915 --> 00:16:48,900
[Celia] It's very reliable.

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00:16:48,900 --> 00:16:53,900
We teach them clean hands,
dirty hands technique.

344
00:16:54,270 --> 00:16:58,440
And because dragonflies have
so much mercury in them,

345
00:16:58,440 --> 00:16:59,730
not so much, I should say,

346
00:16:59,730 --> 00:17:02,130
it's not like we're
trying to sample water,

347
00:17:02,130 --> 00:17:03,630
which has very low levels;

348
00:17:03,630 --> 00:17:06,780
it's not so much of a contamination issue.

349
00:17:06,780 --> 00:17:09,630
And they wear gloves just like we do,

350
00:17:09,630 --> 00:17:12,993
and so the data are very robust.

351
00:17:14,157 --> 00:17:15,323
[Audience Member] Great, thank you.