The use of propagative material represents one of the major methods used for crop establishment in the Ontario floricultural greenhouse industry. A portion of this propagative material is important but there also is substantial inter- and intra-provincial movement. It is important to remain vigilant to potential introductions of insect pests through transfer of this plant […]

The goal of this research project is to develop a management toolkit that will enable First Nation fisheries managers to select and employ appropriate mathematical population models based on management objectives and available data. The primary societal contribution of this research program is the development of a toolkit that will immediately enable access to ecological […]

The research project involves examining spring barley purelines and mixtures of purelines through yield trials at multiple locations across Ontario. The data from the trial will be analyzed with the appropriate analysis of variance, enabling Hyland Seeds to adapt the current barley breeding program to a program that selects the best barley mixtures. The benefits […]

Final cheese characterizations are dependent on the treatment (s) and ingredient (s) put into the cheese milk.  Although in general, cheese making processes are reasonably understood, there is still a lack of basic understanding of what processing history of the ingredients will do the final cheese products.  The effect of processing history of milk, such […]

Global climate change threatens to drastically alter the behaviour and fitness of many species, and the ability to predict how Canadian wildlife will respond to these changes is imperative in planning management strategies. In this study, we will examine long-term changes in bill colouration, diet, and abundance of the Atlantic Puffin. We will collect feathers […]

The standard method to test for Listeria n7onocj'logenes in foods is prone to false negatives if also non-pathogenic members of the Listeria genus are present. These can overgrow L.monocylogenes during the selective enrichment process and mask the presence of the pathogen. This "overgrowth'" phenomenon is not well understood, partially because the mathematical models that are […]

We have discovered a set of naturally occurring GATA transcription factors that increase chlorophyll levels, chloroplast numbers and starch in plants. Maize (corn) and Oryza (rice) lines have been created by Syngenta and are being analyzed in the Rothstein laboratory. The project primarily involves determining the exact genes that are controlled by these transcription factors, […]

The mining industry represents a large part of the economy in Canada. Ontario is the largest producer of gold in the nation, producing 53% of Canada's total minerals production in 2007 [1]. Despite its high toxicity, cyanide is commonly employed in the extraction of gold from its ore. Its use represents an environmental hazard due […]

In this research we will determine how the feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) moves through cells of an infected host. The FIV is very similar to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and like all retroviruses moves from the cell membrane through the cytoplasm and then into the nucleus of infected cells. Once in the nucleus, the […]

Salmonella is the second most frequent cause of foodborne illness in Canada and pork is one of sources for human salmonellosis.  Salmonella has also the potential to cause clinical disease in pigs.  Salmonella is commonly found on Ontario swine farms.  Thus control strategies should be implemented.  Vaccination appears to be one of the most promising […]

Nowadays, most of cell biomechanics studies based on cell stretching have focused on small stretching magnitude, without the ability to visualize cell behavior and morphology during stretch. We therefor decided to build a cell stretcher/incubator providing the physiological conditions of cell culture (37°C, 5% CO2) while also allowing the application of a wide range of […]

Over the last ten years, the needs of industry have made data mining one of the most important facets of Information Technology (IT). In simple terms, data mining is the automatic process of extracting interrelationships and patterns of interest from data. Today, companies around the world rely on data mining not only to discover knowledge […]