AGM student Presentation Winners
2021 VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
Oral Presentations (3-Way tie for 1st):
Claudia Lacroix
Heather Patterson
Julia Sunga
Poster Presentations:
Kyle Vincent
Marie-Laurence Cossette
Kiana Young
Oral Presentations (3-Way tie for 1st):
Claudia Lacroix
Heather Patterson
Julia Sunga
Poster Presentations:
Kyle Vincent
Marie-Laurence Cossette
Kiana Young
pREVIOUS tRAVEL gRANT wINNERS
SPRING 2018
Kelly McLean, University of New Brunswick
The role of wetland buffer width in maintaining American Black Duck populations in New Brunswick commercial forests
"Commercial forestry is an important industry in New Brunswick (NB), Canada, and should balance high economic yield with a strong environmental responsibility. One way to achieve this is to forgo harvesting in forested zones (buffers) around waterbodies. Buffers are important to the industrial forest as they can reduce the negative effects of land uses adjacent to aquatic systems. In NB, forestry operations must maintain ≥30m buffers around waterbodies. However, except for fish, there has been little empirical examination of the wildlife response to NB’s ≥30m buffer requirement. Waterfowl are potential indicators of ecosystem health in eastern North America because they experience perturbations in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The American Black Duck (“black duck”; Anas rubripes) is a socially, economically, and ecologically important waterfowl species in NB. However, midwinter inventories conducted on black duck wintering grounds in the United States demonstrated a >50% decline in black duck populations from the 1950’s to the 1980’s. Management has increased black duck populations in some areas, except in the commercially forested region of interior NB where they exhibit notable local extirpations. We examine the role of wetland buffer width in the persistence of black duck populations. We used a geographic information system to overlay forest harvest data with georeferenced black duck observation data from 1996-2017 in 13 plots surveyed by the Canadian Wildlife Service. Plots are 25km2 and surveyed in a rotational schedule (among years). Preliminary results suggest that a smaller mean distance to harvest from a wetland edge has a negative influence on the number of black duck observations. We will use these results to develop a dynamic model to determine the optimal buffer size to maintain black duck populations in NB and conduct field experiments to assess the effects of buffer width on black duck nest success and susceptibility to anthropogenic disturbance."
Kelly McLean, University of New Brunswick
The role of wetland buffer width in maintaining American Black Duck populations in New Brunswick commercial forests
"Commercial forestry is an important industry in New Brunswick (NB), Canada, and should balance high economic yield with a strong environmental responsibility. One way to achieve this is to forgo harvesting in forested zones (buffers) around waterbodies. Buffers are important to the industrial forest as they can reduce the negative effects of land uses adjacent to aquatic systems. In NB, forestry operations must maintain ≥30m buffers around waterbodies. However, except for fish, there has been little empirical examination of the wildlife response to NB’s ≥30m buffer requirement. Waterfowl are potential indicators of ecosystem health in eastern North America because they experience perturbations in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The American Black Duck (“black duck”; Anas rubripes) is a socially, economically, and ecologically important waterfowl species in NB. However, midwinter inventories conducted on black duck wintering grounds in the United States demonstrated a >50% decline in black duck populations from the 1950’s to the 1980’s. Management has increased black duck populations in some areas, except in the commercially forested region of interior NB where they exhibit notable local extirpations. We examine the role of wetland buffer width in the persistence of black duck populations. We used a geographic information system to overlay forest harvest data with georeferenced black duck observation data from 1996-2017 in 13 plots surveyed by the Canadian Wildlife Service. Plots are 25km2 and surveyed in a rotational schedule (among years). Preliminary results suggest that a smaller mean distance to harvest from a wetland edge has a negative influence on the number of black duck observations. We will use these results to develop a dynamic model to determine the optimal buffer size to maintain black duck populations in NB and conduct field experiments to assess the effects of buffer width on black duck nest success and susceptibility to anthropogenic disturbance."
FALL 2018
Aleksandra Dolezal, Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph
Local and landscape factors drive arthropod assembly in agricultural landscapes
"During this past decade, we hear the story of crashing arthropod populations globally. Arthropods are critical components of terrestrial food-webs and provide vital ecosystem services relating to pollination services, biological control, nutrient cycling and provide a food source to higher trophic levels. Agricultural intensification is thought to be the number one driver of this collapse. However, the extent of these losses and the causes of the declines in agricultural landscapes are not fully understood, and not representative of entire arthropod communities. In Canada, most of the works have been carried out mainly in natural areas, such as forest ecosystems. There is no existing published data found in agricultural landscapes in Ontario in relation to local and landscape drivers. Yet, such information is important for arthropod biodiversity conservation especially in terms of management of insect herbivores. My MSc research with Andrew MacDougall fills these research gaps as we investigate the drivers of whole arthropod communities operating at three spatial scales: local-scale, farm-scale and landscape-scale. We assemble an extensive data set of arthropods in 22 study sites in southern Ontario with a gradient of land use type to determine what drives abundance and richness of important arthropod groups and the factors that drive these responses."
Aleksandra Dolezal, Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph
Local and landscape factors drive arthropod assembly in agricultural landscapes
"During this past decade, we hear the story of crashing arthropod populations globally. Arthropods are critical components of terrestrial food-webs and provide vital ecosystem services relating to pollination services, biological control, nutrient cycling and provide a food source to higher trophic levels. Agricultural intensification is thought to be the number one driver of this collapse. However, the extent of these losses and the causes of the declines in agricultural landscapes are not fully understood, and not representative of entire arthropod communities. In Canada, most of the works have been carried out mainly in natural areas, such as forest ecosystems. There is no existing published data found in agricultural landscapes in Ontario in relation to local and landscape drivers. Yet, such information is important for arthropod biodiversity conservation especially in terms of management of insect herbivores. My MSc research with Andrew MacDougall fills these research gaps as we investigate the drivers of whole arthropod communities operating at three spatial scales: local-scale, farm-scale and landscape-scale. We assemble an extensive data set of arthropods in 22 study sites in southern Ontario with a gradient of land use type to determine what drives abundance and richness of important arthropod groups and the factors that drive these responses."