Atmospheric Acid Emissions, Climate Change, and Coastal Salmon Stream Ecosystems in British Columbia

Atmospheric acid emissions are increasing in north coastal British Columbia from increased metallurgical smelting, marine fossil fuel transport, and development of liquefied natural gas. Acid deposition can cause episodic acidification of streams when acidic compounds are flushed into streams after snowmelt and precipitation events over hours to weeks. Many salmon-bearing coastal streams are likely sensitive to episodic acidification, but these events are poorly quantified in western Canada.

Investigating the use of public food forests in urban food systems planning

Public food forests can be an important way to increase urban resilience, sustainability, and food security. The food forest, or forest garden, is an edible landscape designed for food production. This research investigates how publicly-accessible urban food forests are currently being utilized to enhance food production and resilience. By reviewing existing examples, this research seeks to identify key models for design, participatory decision-making, and ongoing management of food forests on public land.

Creating a Novel Framework: Managing a Tribal Park for Biocultural Conservation

The Dasiqox tribal Park, one of Canada's most exciting current initiatives, was established in 2014 by the Tsilhqot’in First Nation following the Supreme Court of Canada’s landmark recognition of Tsilhqot’in Title in their territory. Dr. Bhattacharyya has been invited to work with Yunesit’in Development Enterprise, in collaboration with partnering First Nations and organizations, to develop a management plan for the Dasiqox Tribal Park.

Invasion process of the nonindigenous golden mussel, Limnoperna fortunei, in the South to North Water Diversion Project, China, and its impact on associated aquatic ecosystem health

The Central Route of South to North Water Diversion (SNWD) project in China aims at transferring water from Yangtze River Basin to Beijing and Tianjin via a 1276 km open water canal across China. This represents a great risk for the accepting water bodies to be biologically invaded. The home university, University of Windsor, has been involved in the International project assessing the bio-risk of the SNWD.

Impacts of Environmental Change on Subsistence Land Use

My internship focuses on the creation of a weighted scale that ranks different types of environmental disturbances, both natural (i.e. wildfires) and anthropogenic (i.e. seismic activity), by the level of transformation they incur in arctic tundra ecosystems. Currently, there is a lack of a widely used ranking system to help understand which types of environmental disturbances in the arctic are most severe.

Investigating the use of public food forests in urban food systems planning

Public food forests can be an important way to increase urban resilience, sustainability, and food security. The food forest, or forest garden, is an edible landscape designed for food production. This research investigates how publicly-accessible urban food forests are currently being utilized to enhance food production and resilience. By reviewing existing examples, this research seeks to identify key models for design, participatory decision-making, and ongoing management of food forests on public land.

Regenerative Neighbourhoods Project

The research undertaken through the Regenerative Neighbourhoods Project explores the ways that specific building and infrastructure projects can act as catalysts for transformational change at the neighbourhood scale with respect to sustainability objectives. It encompasses both substantive performance improvements and the changes in the project delivery processes required to achieve them.

An omics study of plant responses to non-oncogenic Agrobacterium infection Year Two

Time-course biochemical and transcriptomic (gene expression) analysis of Nicotiana benthamiana in response to Agrobacterium infection and monoclonal antibody (mAB) expression. Host response to Agrobacterium infection may provide insight into novel approaches to increase recombinant protein production. Understanding changes in host gene expression may help identify targets for future engineering to limit negative impacts on the host due to infection and recombinant gene expression. Differential gene expression analysis may also reveal specific up-regulated host defenses (e.g.

Development of rapid and accurate genomic techniques for ballast water UV treatment

The United States Coast Guard (USCG) recently introduced stringent regulations for the treatment of ballast water. Ultra-violet (UV) light is a useful technology in a ballast water treatment system (BWTS), for inactivating phytoplankton which could be invasive and harmful to humans and the environment. UV damages DNA and prevents replication, but the vital stain methods mandated in the USCG protocol do not detect UV damage. Alternative culture-based measures of reproductive capacity are yet to be approved, time consuming, and have limitations (not all species may grow).

Functional genomics of abiotic stress tolerance in the brown algalmodel Ectocarpus siliculosus using an Arabidopsis toolbox

A Ph.D. student will be trained in an interdisciplinary area of algal functional genomics and molecular plant physiology. Combining these two areas in this project will solve two major issues. (1) Currently, there is a limitation in the study of brown algal functional genomics; brown algae, including Ectocarpus, are not yet amenable for genetic transformation, and other genetic tools like RNA interference system are still in their infancy for these organisms.

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