Monitoring program in Nunavut finds biting insects emerging earlier, and with more variety of species

When Beau Taptuna went out hunting last fall near Kugluktuk, Nunavut, with his family he noticed something different. 

“We’ve seen at least five dead caribou out on land with no gunshot wounds,” he said.

Taptuna believes the animals died from an insect-borne parasite. He’s also heard concerns from other community members about how insects affect animals like caribou and muskox. 

Taptuna is a summer science ranger in Kugluktuk and is helping with the Kitikmeot biting insect monitoring program. The federally-funded program looks at insects and the parasites they carry and how they affect animals, and also monitors the biodiversity of biting insects like black flies and mosquitoes as the climate changes. 

The program started in Kugluktuk three years ago and has since expanded to Gjoa Haven, Kugaaruk and Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. 

As part of his work, Taptuna uses a variety of nets to catch insects which are then sent to labs at the University of Guelph and the University of Calgary. 

Insects emerging earlier, more biodiversity

Danielle Nowosad, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Calgary, says so far the project has found insects are emerging earlier because of warming temperatures, and that there are more types of insects compared to a previous survey in 2010-2011. 

“Projecting into the future, it’s very likely there will be population abundance increases. So you’ll see more mosquitoes on the land or more biting insects on the land, just by volume, but also potentially new different kinds coming in,” Nowosad said. 

Taptuna says last year’s samples found just under 300 insect species in Kugluktuk. 

Nowosad says she’s built a species distribution model using climate data looking into the future and has found that the geographical land area where black flies can breed is very likely to increase significantly in the North over the coming decades.

The monitoring program, she says, came out of a request from a hunters and trappers organization’s annual general meeting in 2022 and is a community-led initiative, with discussions with community members, elders and harvesters ingrained in the work. 

Hannah Zikalala, a project manager in Cambridge Bay, says she likes working on the program and being on the land. 

“I really like helping,” she said. “I really like being part of something bigger and this feels like something that’s going to be really big and really helpful for our animals.”

Zikalala says the work is important because of the potential for insect-borne parasites to affect the size and health of caribou populations in the North. 

“If it affects one caribou in the area, it can affect a lot of others,” she said. “I love my traditional meat and I would want people for generations to enjoy it.” 

More diversity in parasites than originally thought, researcher says

Nowosad says a big part of the program is monitoring parasites, and that it’s not possible for humans to get infected with the parasites they are examining. 

“There’s a lot more diversity in the parasites than we originally thought,” she said. “We kind of thought that through DNA and genetics, it might be just one or two types of parasites, but we’re learning through more advanced genomic techniques that there is likely more diversity than we originally thought.” 

Nowosad says community members also talk about how the wildfires down south may be bringing new types of biting insects north. That’s also something the researchers are looking into. 

Nowosad says the program will continue for another couple of years and that a research paper will come out in the fall.

To Taptuna, the monitoring program is essential, as it’s about more than just insects.

“It’s important to mostly the animals because that is our life cycle. Our base of our life cycle is animals, because we rely on the animals to harvest them,” he said.