Biology Department

Newsletter /Bulletin

September-December 2005 / Septembre-décembre 2005

Awards and Achievements

Andrew Bennett and Sarah Elsasser were recently awarded OGSST-Tembec Scholarships for the academic year 2005-2006. The awards are for $10,000.00.

Congratulations to Dr. Leo Leduc who has been accepted by the Canadian College of Microbiologists as an Academic and Research Microbiologist! This designation (ARMCCM) reflects Dr. Leduc's valuable contributions to research, teaching and the academic community.

Dr. Madhur Anand, Biology professor and Canada Research Chair in Biocomplexity of the Environment at Laurentian University, has won the 2005 Young Alumni Award of Merit from the University of Western Ontario. This award was presented on September 30, 2005, and it recognizes Dr. Anand's contribution to her field of endeavour.

Dr. Yves Alarie has been appointed as Subject Editor to the Annals of the Entomological Society of America.

Congratulations to Biology graduate student Nadia Mykytczuk (in the laboratory of Dr. Leo Leduc) who recently was awarded the Carleton University Medal in Science, awarded to the undergraduate graduating with the highest academic standing in science!

Congratulations to Erika Genrich who recently was awarded a two-year NSERC Industrial Postgraduate Scholarship! Erika is conducting an MSc. thesis project on the effects of metals on benthic invertebrates and littoral zone fish communities in NE Ontario lakes, under the supervision of Dr. John Gunn. Inco Ltd. was the supporting company of this industrial research scholarship.

Dr. Albrecht Schulte-Hostedde was recently awarded $100,000 by the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation under the new Early Researcher Early Award program to study individual and genetic approaches in the evolutionary and behavioural ecology of mammals. Congratulations!

Announcements

The Department is sad at the passing of Keith Winterhalder, a retired faculty member, who passed away on 29 October, 2005. Prof. Winterhalder was pivotal in the regreening of Sudbury and received many accolades and awards for his efforts.

Congratulations to Dr. Peter Ryser for recently attaining his Canadian citizenship!

Peter Ryser - Can. citizenship

Dr. P Ryser, second from right, receiving his Canadian citizenship

Thesis Defences

Congratulations to the following students who successfully defended their M.Sc. theses:

Talena Kraus - Ovulation rates in harvested fisher (Martes pennanti) populations of central Ontario, with special reference to habitat conditions (September 12, 2005)

Scott Kaufman - Walleye (Sander vitreus) activity and predator/prey interactions in lakes with and without alternative larger prey, lake herring (Coregonus artedi) (September 13, 2005)

Tina Preseau - Isolation and characterizaion of microbial population indigenous to acid mine drainage environments (September 23, 2005)

Louise Gravelle - The antibiotic resistance of bacteria isolated from dental unit waterlines (November 15, 2005)

François Prévost - Multi-dimensional system modelling in anthropogenically impacted watersheds (December 1, 2005)

William Dew - The use of a secreted embryonic alkaline phosphatase-based reporter plasmid assay and electrophoretic mobility shift assays to investigate differences in signal transduction between a chemosensitive cell line (MCF-7) and two chemoresistant cell lines (MCF-7_TAX and MCF-7_DOX) (December 16, 2005)

Dave Marshall - Recovery of white birch (Betula papyrifera Marsh.), red maple (Acer rubrum L.), and red oak (Quercus rubra L.) growing on a smelter-impacted landscape following reductions of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) emissions: a dendrochronological analysis (December 22, 2005)

Seminars

On November 4, Dr. Mark Forbes (Department of Biology, Carleton University) presented a seminar entitled "Natural history of parasites and their hosts: Off the shelves and from the closet."

On November 18, Dr. Paul Wilson (Department of Biology, Trent University) presented his seminar entitled "A comparison of mitochondrial DNA - and Y-chromosome sequences incresases the complexity of understanding wolf taxonomy in North America."

On December 9, Mr. Ben Porchuk, from The Wilds of Pelee Island and The Land Between Collaborative, presented a seminar entitled "Ontario's unknown biodiversity belt - introducing the land between - relevant science, current policy and grassroots conservation efforts from the land trust model."

Conferences and Presentations

Graduate student Michael Bodnar was chosen as one of the four participants in a Graduate Student Symposium held as part of the Annual Conference of the Entomological Society of Canada in Canmore, Alberta, November 2-5, 2005. His presentation, co-authored with Dr. J. D. Shorthouse, was entitled "Comparison of component communities associated with cynipid galls near James Bay and central Ontario."

Glen Watson ( Inco Ltd.) hosted the first NSERC CRD workshop for the project “Barriers to Biological Recovery” at the Copper Cliff Club on Nov. 22. Presentations were given by the following graduate students: Laurentian University – Amanda Valois, Kelly Lippert, Dallas Linley, Erika Genrich; York University – Martha Celis-Salgado, Michelle Palmer, Allegra Cairns ( technician) and by the PIs : John Gunn ( LU), Bill Keller (LU), George Morgan (LU), Norm Yan ( York) and Charles Ramcharan (LU).

Publications

Desrochers, R.E. and M. Anand. 2005. Quantifying the components of biocomplexity along ecological perturbation gradients. Biodiversity and Conservation 14: 3437-3455.

Rayfield, B., M. Anand & S. Laurence. 2005. Assessing simple versus complex restoration strategies for industrially disturbed forests. Restoration Ecology 13: 638-649.

Pagnutti, C., M. Anand , and M. Azzouz. 2005. Lattice geometry, gap formation and scale invariance in forests. Journal of Theoretical Biology 236: 79-87.

Anand, M., S. Laurence and B. Rayfield. 2005. Diversity relationships among taxonomic groups in recovering and restored forests. Conservation Biology 19: 955-962.

Tucker, B.C. and M. Anand 2005. On the use of stationary versus hidden Markov models to detect simple versus complex ecological dynamics. Ecological Modelling 185: 177-193.

Belzile, N., Y-W. Chen, J.M. Gunn, J. Tong, Y. Alarie, T. Delonchamp, and C-Y. Yang. 2006. The effect of selenium on mercury assimilation by freshwater organisms. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 63: 1-10.

Cahill, K.L., J.M. Gunn and M.N. Futter. 2005. Modelling ice cover, timing of spring stratification, and the end-of-season mixing depth in small Precambrian Shield lakes. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 62: 2134-2142.

Shorthouse, J.D., J.J. Leggo, M.D. Sliva, and R.G. Lalonde. 2005. Has egg location influenced the radiation of Diplolepis (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) gall wasps on wild roses? Basic and Applied Ecology 6: 423-434.

Shorthouse, J.D., D. Wool, and A. Raman 2005. Gall-inducing insects - nature's most sophisticated herbivores. Basic and Applied Ecology 6: 407-411.

Cahill, K.L., J.M. Gunn and M.N. Futter. 2005. Modelling ice cover, timing of spring stratification, and end-of-season mixing depth in small Precambrian Shield lakes. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 62: 2134-2142.

Hunt, L.M. and G. Morgan. 2005. Examining Policy Preferences of Recreationists: A Case of a Fisheries Management Plan. Leisure/Loisir 29: 377-395.

Keller, W.(Bill), J. Heneberry, and J. Leduc. 2005. Linkages between weather, dissolved organic carbon, and cold-water habitat in a Boreal Shield lake recovering from acidification. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 62: 341-347.

Johnston, T.A., L.M. Miller, D.M. Whittle, S.B. Brown, M.D. Wiegand, A.R. Kapuscinski and W.C. Leggett. 2005. Effects of maternally transferred organochlorine conatminants on early life survival in a freshwater fish. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 24: 2594-2602.

Lodé T., M-J. Holveck & D. Lesbarrères. 2005. Asynchronous arrival pattern, operational sex ratio and occurrence of multiple paternities in a territorial breeding anuran, Rana dalmatina. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 86: 191-200.

Tonteri, A., S. Titov, A. Veselov, A. Zubchenko, M. T. Koskinen, D. Lesbarrères, S. Kaluzchin, I. Bakhmet, J. Lumme, and C. R. Primmer. 2005. Phylogeography of anadromous and non-anadromous Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) from northern Europe. Annales Zoologici Fennici 42:1-22.

Lesbarrères D., Primmer C.R., Laurila A. & Merilä J. 2005. Environmental and population dependency of heterozygosity-fitness correlations in Rana temporaria. Molecular Ecology 14: 311-323.

Mahmoud, K.K., L.G. Leduc, and G.D. Ferroni. 2005. Detection of Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans in acid mine drainage environments using fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH). J. Microbiol. Meth. 61: 33-45.

Purchase, C.F., N.C.Collins, Morgan, G.E., and B.J. Shuter. 2005. Predicting life history traits of yellow perch from environmental characteristics of lakes. Trans. Am. Fish. Soc. 134:1369-1381.

Purchase, C.F., N.C. Collins, G.E. Morgan, and B.J. Shuter. 2005. Sex-specific covariation among life-history traits of yellow perch (Perca flavescens). Evolutionary Ecology Research 7: 549-566.

Köhler B., Gigon A., Edwards P.J., Krüsi B., Langenauer R., Lüscher A. & Ryser P. 2005. Changes in the species composition and conservation value of limestone grasslands in Northern Switzerland after 22 years of contrasting managements. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 7: 51-67.

Vernescu, C., Coulas, J. & Ryser P. 2005. Leaf mass loss in wetland graminoids during senescence. Oikos 109: 187-195.

Kahlert B.R., Ryser P. & Edwards P.J. 2005. Leaf phenology of three dominant limestone grassland plants matching disturbance regime. Journal of Vegetation Science 16: 433-442.

M.L. Conrad, J.E. Enman, S.J. Scales, H. Zhang, C.M. Vogels, M.T. Saleh, A. Decken and S.A. Westcott. 2005. Synthesis, characterization, and cytotoxicities of platinum(II) complexes bearing pyridinecarboxaldimines containing bulky aromatic groups. Inorg. Chim. Acta. 358: 63-69.

Mojumdar, S.C., Madgurambal, G., and M.T. Saleh. 2005. A study on synthesis and thermal, spectral and biological properties of Carboxylato-Mg(II) and Carboxylato-Cu(II) complexes with bioactive ligands. J. Therm. Anal. Cal. 81: 205-210.

Perez-Orella, C., and A.I. Schulte-Hostedde. 2005. Effects of sex and body size on ectoparasite loads in the northern flying squirrel (Glaucomys sabrinus). Canadian Journal of Zoology 83: 1381-1385.

Schulte-Hostedde, A.I., J.S. Millar, and G.J. Hickling. 2005. Condition dependence of testis size in small mammals. Evolutionary Ecology Research 7: 143-149.

Schulte-Hostedde, A.I., B. Zinner, J.S. Millar, and G.J. Hickling. 2005. Restitution of mass/size residuals: Validating body condition indices. Ecology 86: 155-163.

Schulte-Hostedde, A.I., and G. Burness. 2005. Fertilization dynamics of sperm from different male mating tactics in bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus). Canadian Journal of Zoology 83: 1638-1642.

Shuter, B.J., N.P. Lester, J. LaRose, C.F. Purchase, K.Vascotto, G. Morgan, N.C. Collins, and P.A. Abrams. 2005. Optimal life histories and food web position: linkages among somatic growth, reproductive investment, and mortality. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 62:738-746.

Waltenbury, D.R., L.G. Leduc, and G.D. Ferroni. 2005. The use of RAPD genomic fingerprinting to study relatedness in strains of Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans. J. Microbiol. Meth. 62: 103-112.