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Western-trained, non-Indigenous researchers in Canada have an ethical responsibility to collaborate with Indigenous Peoples and to re-envision the scientific research process through the lens of reconciliation. The health of the natural environment has long been a concern to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples, and weaving different ways of knowing could provide a path forward to address critical wildlife health concerns. Here, we conducted a review of the peer-reviewed and grey literature that claims to weave Indigenous and Western ways of knowing in ecotoxicology and wildlife health in Canada, coding for background information, wildlife health stressors, research methods, Indigenous participation, and research outcomes. Seventeen studies met the inclusion criteria, the majority of which were published since 2015 and took place in Canada's North. Research collaborations were often between First Nations or Inuit knowledge holders (most frequently, active harvesters and Elders) and Western-trained, non-Indigenous academics. Most studies were initiated by mutual agreement between community partners and researchers, but no study was 'Indigenous-led' at any stage of research. Studies investigated environmental contaminants and health-related topics in a range of wildlife, usually traditional subsistence species. The most commonly studied disease was avian cholera, and the most studied class of toxicants was metals and trace elements. Indigenous knowledge was primarily collected via interviews. Studies often used multiple methodologies to braid or weave knowledge, but the most frequently used methodology was community-based participatory research. To provide a more holistic understanding of the process of weaving knowledge, we conducted an in-depth examination, applying a decolonizing lens, of two exemplar cases of collaborative research with Indigenous communities. This exploration led to the conclusion that research that weaves ways of knowing must not be approached with a 'one-size-nts-all' mindset, but instead should emphasize relationship building, continuous engagement, and ethical practices. By adopting such practices, Western-trained, non-Indigenous academics can better address critical wildlife health concerns while contributing meaningfully to advancing healing and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. Key words: Indigenous People, reconciliation, Indigenous knowledge, natural sciences, braiding knowledge systems, collaborative research, Introduction For many Indigenous Peoples around the world ''research' is one of the dirtiest words' (Smith 2021). Research with Indigenous Peoples and communities in Canada has not always been meaningful [...]

Complex socio-environmental challenges require interdisciplinary, team-based research capacity. Graduate students are fundamental to building such capacity, yet formal opportunities for graduate students to develop these capacities and skills are uncommon. This paper presents an assessment of the Graduate Pursuit (GP) program, a formal interdisciplinary team science graduate research and training program administered by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC). Quantitative and qualitative assessment of the program’s first cohort revealed that participants became significantly more comfortable with interdisciplinary research and team science approaches, increased their capacity to work across disciplines, and were enabled to produce tangible research outcomes. Qualitative analysis of four themes—(1) discipline, specialization, and shared purpose, (2) interpersonal skills and personality, (3) communication and teamwork, and (4) perceived costs and benefits—encompass participants’ positive and negative experiences and support findings from past assessments. The findings also identify challenges and benefits related to individual personality traits and team personality orientation, the importance of perceiving a sense of autonomy and independence, and the benefit of graduate training programs independent of the university and graduate program environment.

A key challenge facing ecologists and ecosystem managers is understanding what drives unexpected shifts in ecosystems and limits the effectiveness of human interventions. Research that integrates and analyses data from natural and social systems can provide important insight for unravelling the complexity of these dynamics. It is, therefore, a critical step towards the development of evidence-based, whole-system management approaches. To examine our ability to influence ecosystems that are behaving in unexpected ways, we explore three prominent cases of “ecological surprise.” We captured the social-ecological systems (SES) using key variables and interactions from Ostrom’s SES framework, which integrates broader ecosystem processes (e.g. climate, connectivity), management variables (e.g. quotas, restrictions, monitoring), resource use behaviours (e.g. harvesting) and the resource unit (e.g. trees, fish, clean water) being managed. Structural equation modelling revealed that management interventions often influenced resource use behaviours (e.g. rules and limits strongly affected harvest or pollution), but they did not have a significant effect on the abundance of the managed resource. Instead, most resource variability was related to ecological processes and feedbacks operating at broader spatial or temporal scales than management interventions, which locked the resource system into the degraded state. Synthesis and applications. Mismatch between the influence of management systems and ecosystem processes can limit the effectiveness of human interventions during periods of ecological surprise. Management strategies should shift from a conventional focus on removal or addition of a single resource towards solutions that influence the broader ecosystem. Operationalizing Ostrom’s framework to quantitatively analyse social-ecological systems using structural equation models shows promise for testing solutions to navigate these events.

The complex and interdisciplinary nature of socio-environmental (SE) problems has led to numerous efforts to develop organizing frameworks to capture the structural and functional elements of SE systems. We evaluate six leading SE frameworks, i.e., human ecosystem framework, resilience, integrated assessment of ecosystem services, vulnerability framework, coupled human-natural systems, and social-ecological systems framework, with the dual goals of (1) investigating the theoretical core of SE systems research emerging across diverse frameworks and (2) highlighting the gaps and research frontiers brought to the fore by a comparative evaluation. The discussion of the emergent theoretical core is centered on four shared structuring elements of SE systems: components, connections, scale, and context. Cross-cutting research frontiers include: moving beyond singular case studies and small-n studies to meta-analytic comparative work on outcomes in related SE systems; combining descriptive and data-driven modeling approaches to SE systems analysis; and promoting the evolution and refinement of frameworks through empirical application and testing, and interframework learning.

As the extent and intensity of human impacts on ecosystems increase and the capacity of ecosystems to absorb these impacts dwindles, unanticipated behavior in ecological systems-or surprises-is likely to become more common. The concept of ecological surprise is broadly applied but seldom explicitly developed in ecological literature, and ecologists can employ diverging language, frameworks, and interpretations of surprise. Here, we synthesize what ecological surprise has meant to ecologists studying these events and review the development and use of the concept in ecology. We define ecological surprise as a situation where human expectations or predictions of natural system behavior deviate from observed ecosystem behavior. This can occur when people (1) fail to anticipate change in ecosystems; (2) fail to influence ecosystem behavior as intended; or (3) discover something about an ecosystem that runs counter to accepted knowledge. We develop a conceptual model that captures the interactions between social and ecological processes that lead to these events and examine two types of drivers that contribute to surprise: Underlying driving forces and proximate causes. Our definition of ecological surprise inherently acknowledges that, to be surprising, there must be human observers to the ecological occurrence who have expectations about ecosystem behavior. To explore this dimension, we draw on social science perspectives to understand the ways in which human expectations of ecosystems are influenced by social networks, heuristics, and mental models. We use a case study to demonstrate how our integrated conceptualization of ecological surprise provides a systematic way of examining these events. Our integration of these perspectives enables us to better synthesize social and ecological knowledge of these events, and encourages ecologists to critically reflect on how they, as scientists, formulate and reformulate expectations of ecosystem behavior.