The proposed research projects for this internship will include both ongoing chilling/cold acclimation studies as well as establishing successful protocol for cryogenic pollen storage and inducing flowering in select varieties of Miscanthus. Leaf‐level gas exchange and fluorescence will be used to survey the photosynthetic apparatus before, throughout, and after the shortterm chilling experiments and throughout the long‐term […]

  Pathogens from farmed salmon may impact adjacent wild salmon populations, but a lack of understanding of the dynamics of wild salmon populations in areas of intensive salmon aquaculture has precluded informed management decisions and fueled widespread public and scientific debate about the impact of pathogens from farmed fish. This ongoing, highly polarized debate highlights […]

  This project is set in the Inuit community of Northwest River, Labrador and will focus on current and historic Inuit land and resource use of the region.  In involves training local Inuit youth to collect and document traditional knowledge on the location, importance and threats to fresh water, sea ice, sensitive habitats and species; […]

  Native grasslands in Saskatchewan provide important breeding habitat for many grassland birds, including species at risk. However, conservation agencies are concerned that the quantity and quality of remaining grasslands in south-western Saskatchewan may currently be threatened by expansion of natural gas development. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada manages large grassland parcels and seeks to maintain a functioning prairie ecosystem […]

  The project will investigate the genomes of two naturally occurring bacteria. These bacteria are of interest because they can convert the wastes from biodiesel and bioethanol production into valuable compounds. This is novel in comparison to other bacteria used for similar processes because these bacteria are generally regarded as safe, naturally occurring, and contain […]

Counts of birds passing a geographic location during migration to or from their breeding grounds are often used to estimate long-term population change. However, birds often stop at count sites for several days to fatten for their next migratory flight, affecting probability of detection. The migratory path followed might also vary among years. The influence […]

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and Campbell Scientific Canada Corp. (CSC) have been operating an “eddy covariance” meteorological tower near Lacombe, Alberta that measures the flux of carbon dioxide (CO2) between agricultural fields and the atmosphere. This tower provides high frequency data that is used to assess plant growth and decomposition across large fields which […]

  The research outlined in this proposal involves two projects that address challenges in breeding new varieties of the bioenergy crop Miscanthus. The first project is an extension of work that began under a 2010/11 Mitacs-Accelerate PhD Fellowship. This project aims to develop protocol for long-term storage of pollen to cross varieties that do not […]

  Water quality is critical for a many human activities. With respect to recreational water, a particular type of water source, there are often relatively high levels of microbial contamination in relation to other types of water sources (e.g., drinking water). E. coli is used as a microbial indicator for water quality because E. coli […]

A Canadian scientific innovation known as DNA barcoding is advancing species identification and discovery through the analysis of short, standard gene regions. This has led to the widespread use of DNA barcoding as a tool for species identification in a diverse array of practical applications, from ecological monitoring to food fraud. Graduate students from the […]

  Lake size and shape are important factors determining the function and structure of lake ecosystems. Moreover, Lake morphology is important for both biotic and abiotic processes, including species richness of zooplankton, macrophytes, and fishes. In particular, Ontario has tens of thousands of natural ecosystems that make up a large part of Canada’s dominant share […]

The species of European hawkweeds present in British Columbia are aggressive and ecologically detrimental invaders of meadows, parks, agricultural lands and rangelands. Left unmanaged, these species could cost the province of British Columbia upwards of $60 million in economic losses by 2020. The Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (MoFLNRO) is responsible for […]