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view . spring 2008
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH
Among recent environmental research at
UWindsor:
•
Dr. Hugh MacIsaac
, of the Great Lakes
Institute for Environmental Research (GLIER)
is part of a team of North American
researchers working on a five-year project to
model the spread of aquatic, invasive species
in U.S. Great Lakes states and in Ontario,
assess the economic damage and look at
intervention methods to maximize social
benefits. The project has received a US$2.9
million National Science Foundation grant in
the U.S. and a $680,000 Collaborative
Research Opportunities grant from the
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council (NSERC) in Canada.
•
Dr. Trevor Pitcher
, in the Department of
Biological Sciences is researching the
endangered freshwater fish species, redside
dace, and ways to save threatened and
endangered species with captive breeding.
•
GLIER’s
Dr. Daniel Heath
, with an NSERC
grant of almost $480,000, is leading a team
of nine scientists in examining how animals
cope when faced with major contaminants
from industry, agriculture and urbanization.
Comparing brown bullhead fish caught in the
toxic lower Detroit River to those bred in
captivity in a more pristine environment, they
hypothesize that the fish are becoming
sexually mature younger as an evolutionary
method of coping with pollution.
•
Dr. Sherah VanLaerhoven
, one of two
forensic entomologists in Canada, has done
biological research in Leamington’s
greenhouses that has helped tomato growers.
The new environmental research centre could
be beneficial in her research into insects and
food web manipulation to control pest insects
ALUMNI INVOLVEMENT
UWindsor alumni will have an opportunity to
be involved in the new environmental research
centre, co-chair Dr. Dan Mennill says.
“We know what the core research group
wants and we know how to build something
that will attract national and international
attention to this area,” he says. “But we also
want to do this in a way that really speaks to
alumni at the University.”
Alumni can become involved financially in
the planning stages, “or by getting out there
and monitoring how many eggs the bluebird in
their backyard is laying.”
in agricultural crops and in natural environments.
Her studies also include community assembly
and food web dynamics by manipulating the
arrival time of certain species to new
resources to determine how they co-exist and
interact. She was named a “Top 40 Under 40”
by
The Globe and Mail
in 2007.
•
Dr. Stephanie Doucet
, of the Department
of Biological Sciences, explores the ecology
and evolution of visual communication in
animals by examining colour and patterning
of fur, feathers, scales or skin. They act as
signals, as warning colouration or in camouflage,
or to signal such things as identity, sex, age,
dominance and genetic quality of the bearer.
Supported by various NSERC grants for her
fieldwork, Doucet’s research focuses on
tropical birds as well as local projects in which
her graduate students are investigating the
influence of environmental contaminants on
egg coloration in birds, the social and
ecological determinants of scale coloration
in fish and influence of coloration on species
diversity in wood warblers.
•
Dr. Dan Mennill
, an ornithologist and
co-chair of the committee setting up the new
environmental research centre, received a
$100,000 Ontario Ministry of Research and
Innovation’s Early Researcher Award last
summer to study avian vocal communication
patterns. With funding from many national
and international agencies, Mennill studies the
behaviour of both resident and migratory
birds in Ontario, Florida, Costa Rica,
Colombia, and Peru.
•
Dr. Aaron Fisk
, Department of Earth and
Environmental Sciences and member of
GLIER is a Tier II Canada Research Chair in
Trophic Ecology. Dr. Fisk will receive
$100,000 per year over the five years in
support of this chair. Dr. Fisk’s research
