Indigenous Peoples-related environmental research within the basin of the Laurentian Great Lakes: A systematic map protocol

1. The North American Great Lakes Basin is the homeland for many First Nations, Métis and Native American Tribes. The terrestrial and aquatic ecological systems within this multinational region, which is of spiritual, cultural and subsistence significance to a diversity of Indigenous Peoples, are facing several natural and anthropogenic pressures. While there are many current and past research efforts and projects to address those pressures, the nature and range of environment-related projects involving Indigenous Peoples or organizations remains unknown. This gap in knowledge presents a unique opportunity to identify and map past and current environmental and ecological research within the Great Lakes involving Indigenous Peoples. 2. A systematic search strategy will be applied to identify and capture peer-reviewed publications that pertain to past and current environmental research within the Great Lakes basin that involve or are connected to Indigenous Peoples, following the procedures outlined in this systematic

Ontario) as well as major and connecting tributaries as determined through Treaty maps and watershed boundaries. The resulting systematic map will be used to support the identification of research priorities of Indigenous communities and groups. These findings, while limited to the identified peer-reviewed literature, can act as a preliminary step towards aligning academic, funding and government agencies with current initiatives and interests of Indigenous Peoples in the region as well as identifying research gaps, providing recommendations for a more inclusive future initiative planning for the Great Lakes basin.

| Components of the primary research question
For this systematic mapping process, components of the primary research question include the following:

| Population
The included peer-reviewed studies will focus on Indigenous Peoples and Nations surrounding the Great Lakes as well as major tributaries and linking water bodies.

| Study intent
Articles that focus on a research project will be included.

| Geographical scope
Articles that focus on the Great Lakes (Lakes Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie and Ontario) as well as major and connecting tributaries as determined through Treaty maps and watershed boundaries will be included.

| MATERIAL S AND ME THODS
The proposed systematic map will be guided by a Collaboration

| Searching for articles: Search strategy
The scope of the resulting map will be limited to peer-reviewed publications. Therefore, grey literature such as books, government documents, reports and conference proceedings will not be eligible for capture. Although no initial language restriction will be applied to the search, only documents written in English will be considered as translation capacity within the research team is limited. The publication dates of the captured papers will be restricted to the coverage dates of the bibliographic databases and platforms as well as the date of final capture.

| Search string development
To perform a systematic mapping of the literature, several options of words for a search string will be determined using the three research parameters: Indigenous, geography/location and environmental research (Supporting information 2).
Initially, Google Scholar was used for the purpose of becoming familiar with and gathering multiple keywords and synonyms relating to the research components. The use of multiple synonyms is intended to increase the sensitivity of the search string to ensure, to the best of our ability, that the diversity of Indigenous Peoples and Web of Science, we continued to identify, test and refine the use of keywords and combinations using Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) as well as the use of special characters such as truncation and wildcard characters (*), and specific word combinations or exact phrases ("") ( Table 1). During the search string and keyword testing process, when the inclusion of a keyword resulted in the capture of additional sources, that keyword was then added to the proposed search string.
TA B L E 1 Proposed search string for the literature search using the online bibliographic platform, web of science Search string (Indigenous OR Indian OR Indians OR Native* OR Aboriginal* OR tribe* OR tribal* OR Traditional OR Nation OR Nations OR Mohawk) AND ("Great Lake*" OR "Lake Erie" OR "Lake Huron" OR "Lake Ontario" OR "Lake Superior" OR "Lake Michigan" OR "Lake Saint Claire" OR "Lake St. Claire" OR "Saint Claire River" OR "St. Claire River" OR "Georgian Bay" OR "Saint Lawrence River" OR "St. Lawrence River" OR "Detroit River" OR "Grand River") AND (monitor* OR research* OR steward* OR initiative* OR assess* OR examin* OR explor* OR approach* OR review* OR stud* OR project* OR investigat*) The asterisk (*) is a wildcard character that is used to broaden a search by allowing for the capture of variations of a word (e.g. investigat* includes investigate, investigation, investigating), while the quotation marks ("") are used to capture exact phrases.
A preliminary scoping process has been completed to determine whether any similar studies reviewing a broad range of environment-

| Online bibliographic sources
To enhance the breadth of content captured, multiple online databases and bibliographic platforms will be used. Trent University Omni subscription will help to access those databases and platforms.
The final search string developed in Web of Science will be appropriately adapted to each database. Limitations and content for each database and platform will be considered when determining whether to include or exclude a database or platform; for example, the batch export capacity, the search focus such as nature and science, and the range of publication dates that are included in the database or platform. The search will be conducted until the publication capture capacity has reached saturation. All searches will be conducted in the English language. The following online bibliographic platforms and databases will be used for this literature search: Hand searching will be performed by randomly scanning the reference sections of relevant peer-reviewed articles to ensure a high level of inclusivity within the scope of the systematic map. The authors of some of the publications may be contacted as a follow-up.
The comprehensiveness of the search protocol will be assessed using a multi-step process. This process will consist of (1) using multiple bibliographic databases to encompass and increase the coverage of multiple subject fields, (2) using a wide array of search terms, (3) applying no time limitation on the search and (4) using a collection of benchmark articles (n = 20; Supporting information 3).
In all, 20 benchmark articles were identified using the hand search method. These benchmark articles are representative of the diversity of terms (i.e., Indigenous, Great Lakes, Monitoring) included in the search string protocol. It is expected that the search protocol will capture the benchmark articles. If the benchmark articles are not captured with the search protocol, the search protocol will be revised as necessary.
The publications that are captured will be batch exported from each database to Endnote 20 Referencing Software. Endnote is the preferred software for this research as it allows for group collaboration as well as the creation of a database that can be subsequently exported to Microsoft Excel for further analysis. Within Endnote, duplicate publications will be removed, and the process of screening titles and abstracts will begin.

| Article screening
The publications that are captured will be batch exported from each database to Endnote 20 Referencing Software. Endnote is the preferred software for this research as it allows for group collaboration as well as the creation of a database that can be subsequently exported to Microsoft Excel for further analysis. Within Endnote, duplicate publications will be removed, and the process of screening titles and abstracts will begin.
Final captures of the search results will be screened in two stages to identify potentially relevant papers: (1) title and abstract screening and (2) full-text analysis.

| (Stage 1): Title and abstract screening
This stage will require the assistance of two independent reviewers to determine the relevant papers as indicated by the objectives of this review. Having two persons collaborate for this process will help to ensure that the established criteria is being upheld, and increase validity for exclusion/inclusion of papers with a focus that may be challenging to classify. A third reviewer may be consulted if the first two reviewers are unable to agree on whether to include or exclude a publication.
Screening will continue by examining the title and abstract for each study. Studies that fully or partially align with the inclusion criteria (see eligibility criteria below) will proceed to stage 2 of the screening process.

| (Stage 2): Full-text analysis
This stage will involve a manual search and review of entire papers.
During this process, an inclusion/exclusion decision list will be developed which will then inform the removal of irrelevant publications.
Articles excluded at the full-text stage will be provided as an additional file, along with reasons for exclusion, with the published systematic map.
Before the abstract and title screening as well as the full-text screening, consistency checking will be performed to account for different interpretations of the inclusion criteria (i.e. inter-rater reliability testing). Consistency checking will be performed for a subset (5%) of the captured articles. Using the search criteria (i.e., Indigenous, Great Lakes, Monitoring), two reviewers will independently review the same subset of randomly selected articles.
Consistency checking would involve the two reviewers comparing their results and discussing any arising disagreements on inclusion/ exclusion of papers. If disagreements cannot be reconciled and if the level of agreement is below c. 80%, based on a Kappa test, an independent and experienced/senior reviewer within the research team will screen the articles (Alexander et al., 2019). The full screening process will continue when all inconsistencies have been reconciled. Consistency checking ensures that researchers are consistent in their application of the inclusion/exclusion criteria, as well as tests the reliability of the inclusion/exclusion criteria.

| Population
The included peer-reviewed studies will focus on Indigenous Peoples and Nations surrounding the Great Lakes as well as major tributaries and linking water bodies. For the purpose of this review, the researchers use the term Indigenous Peoples to refer to Peoples or Nations (First Nation settling on the land prior to the arrival of European Settlers; Bartlett et al., 2007). It is challenging to ensure that all Indigenous Peoples and Nations around the Great Lakes are captured in this scoping review process as there is a diversity of Indigenous Peoples along the Great Lakes (i.e., the multiple Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee groups e.g., Ojibway and Mohawk). The researchers included multiple synonyms for the word Indigenous in an effort to ensure that all groups were captured.

| Study intent
The resulting systematic map will include papers which aim to conduct or have conducted environmental research. For the purpose of the map, environmental research will be defined broadly as any planned and/or purposeful study relating to the environment.

| Geographical scope
The geographical context for this systematic map includes the five North American Great Lakes as well as major tributaries and linking water bodies/rivers in close proximity to Treaty and community lands for First Nation, Métis, Native American Tribes and Tribal Organizations. It is challenging to define the study boundary as the Great Lakes basin watershed spans two countries-the United States and Canada. This study aims to overcome that challenge by defining the study boundary. For the purpose of this study, lands and waters extending up to 500 km from the shorelines of any of the five Great lakes will be included. Only papers written in the English language will be included and papers included will be limited to the range of database date coverage.
Reviewers within the research team who are authors on articles that were captured within the review process will not be allowed to make decisions regarding the inclusion of those papers. Independent reviewers within the research team will lead the inclusion/exclusion process in such instances.

| Study validity assessment
It is not the intention of the systematic map to assess or critique the quality (i.e. replicability, validity or credibility) of captured papers.

| Data coding strategy
Following Stage 2 of the screening process, remaining studies for potential inclusion will be exported from Endnote 20 into Microsoft Excel. The articles will be coded using a customized Microsoft Excel template (Supporting information 4). The template was designed to reflect and capture key information about the articles based on various themes/categories including: bibliography information, geographical location of study, population (Indigenous Peoples) and purpose of undertaking (i.e., environmental-related research or monitoring project). The results will be compiled and extracted in Microsoft Excel. The authors of some of the publications may be contacted as a follow-up when there is missing bibliographic information.
To avoid misrepresentation of articles while extracting data from identified articles, missing information will be coded/recorded as Unspecified.

| Study mapping and presentation
Major focus areas of research involving Indigenous Peoples within the Great Lakes will be coded, analysed and presented/reported through the application of a narrative synthesis approach, using thematic content analysis and descriptive statistics (Saldaña, 2021).
Results of the analysis will be presented in tables and figures.
Priority themes/focus of previous and current environmental