environmental news - University of Alberta

University of AlbertaEnvironmental Research and Studies Centre

newsenvironmental

Special Issue

September 2003

EnvironmentalResearch at the University of Alberta

Ray RasmussenTransAlta Professor of Environmental Policy andDirector, Environmental Research and Studies CentreUniversity of AlbertaSchool of [email protected]

The University of Alberta offers several internationally recognized environ-mental research and studies programs.

These are found in a variety of faculties: Arts, Science, Law, Engineering, Medicine and Dentistry, Agriculture, Forestry & Home Economics, Business, Education, and Physical Education and Recreation.

In this edition of Environmental News we provide details of the research programs undertaken by professors in several of these programs.

An extensive listing of environmental studies courses, programs, careers and links to research pages can be found at www.ualberta.ca/ERSC.

The ERSC coordinates an interdisciplinary environmental research lecture series, start-ing September 25, 2003 at 4:30 pm in Den-tistryPharmacy Building, Room 2022. The series is free and is open to all students and the public. Leading Scientists from around the globe and University of Alberta will explore Climate Change within the context of their specialized research. Details of the lecture series can be found on the ERSC web site.

I hope that that this special edition of Envi-ronmental News will inspire you to explore the Environmental programs available at the University of Alberta and to consider a program of study and a career in the Envi-ronmental Sciences.

For many years I have been concerned with land-use planning and

management issues associ-ated with protected areas as well as the wider countryside in both Canada and Britain. More specifically my research has focused on national parks and protected areas policy, planning, and management; the stewardship of heritage resources within lived-in and working landscapes; and countryside planning and outdoor recreation environ-ments.

Land-use Planningand Management in Protected Landscapes

Guy Swinnerton ProfessorFaculty of Physical Education and [email protected]

My current research program is directly related to my membership of the Protected Landscapes Task Force of IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas. Protected Landscapes (IUCN protected area Category V) are areas where biodiversity protection is coincident with sustaining and enhancing the social and economic stability of the area and the quality of life of its residents. As such, Category V areas are working land-scapes that demonstrate the on-going interaction between people and their means of livelihood that is primarily dependent on the basic re-sources (natural and cultural) of the area. The protected landscape concept refers not only to a product but also a landscape management pro-cess that accommodates and guides change and where local people are involved in this process through coopera-tion and partnership.

At the macro level I have been evaluating the extent to which Canada’s 772 Category V areas that are reported by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre dem-onstrate the distinguishing characteristics and manage-ment objectives of Protected Landscapes, as defined by the IUCN. Case studies are being used from across Can-ada to illustrate examples of good practice.

More locally, and as a mem-ber of the Science Advisory Committee to Elk Island National Park, I am involved with the Beaver Hills Initia-tive. This Initiative is an at-tempt to conserve the land-scapes and lifestyles within the Beaver Hills through the implementation of a sustain-able community approach. This approach demonstrates many of the principles and practices of Category V pro-tected areas.

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Wildlife Populations in Alberta

Mark S. BoyceProfessorAlberta Conservation Association Chair in Fisheries and WildlifeDepartment of Biological [email protected]

My position is endowed by the Alberta Conservation Association, the organi-zation that manages

funds from the sale of hunt-ing and fishing licenses in Alberta. Therefore research in my lab focuses on projects of interest to the hunters and an-glers in Alberta. I have a large laboratory with ten students and four postdocs conduct-ing research on black bears, grizzly bears, cougars, marten, mink, muskrats, wolves, elk, caribou, mule deer, and sage grouse. These projects are be-ing conducted throughout Al-berta with an objective to provide information that can improve the management of wildlife resources in the province. Funding for these projects comes from a vast array of sources including NSERC, National Science Founda-tion, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Alberta Professional Outfitters Society, Sunpine Forest Products, Alberta Pacific, Wilburforce Founda-tion, Sustainable Forest Management NCE, Foothills Model Forest, Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, Safari Club Interna-tional, Boone and Crockett Club, National Geographic Society, Canon Foundation, Alberta Ingenuity, Canadian Foundation for Innovation, ACA, and Weyerhaeuser Canada.

The “bottom line” as it relates to wildlife conservation and management is habitat.

Therefore, a number of my students are studying habitat models that can be used to anticipate the consequences of industrial development in Alberta. Roads, oil and gas pipelines, seismic lines, and other linear features are having large effects on wildlife by affording access for humans and by displac-ing animals from habitats that might have been used otherwise. In addition, we have developed approaches

for anticipating the consequences of habitat alteration to the risk of extinction for spe-cies at risk in Alberta including sage grouse, caribou, and grizzly bears. Another research theme relates to understanding the role of predator-prey interactions in the manage-ment of wildlife populations.

Professional Forester Certification in the New Millennium

Naomi KrogmanAssociate ProfessorDepartment ofRural [email protected]

Recognizing that professional foresters are change agents in forest manage-ment, this project focuses on their pro-

fessional education to prepare them for man-aging forests in a dynamic social context and forest policy environment. Our first objective is to document curriculum experimentation across a number of forestry schools in North America that have adjusted their programs to integrate social aspects of forestry into their curriculum. We are especially interested in the knowledge and skills foresters obtain in regards to Aboriginal and stakeholder values and working with local and extralocal non-commercial interests on forest management decisions, especially Aboriginal peoples.

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Soil Biogeochemistry

Sylvie A. QuideauAssistant Professor Department ofRenewable [email protected]

Our second objective is to assess professionally employed foresters’ current challenges in the field, their perceived needs for professional forestry educational reform, and their continu-ing educational experiences. This would entail a comparison of the experiences and attitudes of professional foresters across all provinces with professional forestry associations.

Registered professional foresters are currently submitting their surveys via our web-based survey and through mail out sur-veys (to those who have requested a hard copy). The survey required a great deal of deliberation over individual survey items from our four member research team and due to exten-sive feedback from our pretest of the survey. A key challenge for this project will be to obtain a reasonable response rate (65% or higher) from registered professional foresters, who we are told do not generally respond well to solicited surveys.

Like water and air, soil is an essential envi-ronmental resource that has been greatly impacted by human activities. This

research aims to characterize soil biogeochem-ical processes in relation to environmental change by addressing the link between soil carbon chemistry, struc-tural diversity of microbial communities, and nutrient cycling processes (see Figure describing the experimental approach):

1. Soil organic matter (SOM) formation involves the trans-formation of fresh plant, mi-crobial, and animal residues into more stable organic constituents, or humus. While total carbon content is an important soil property, the chemical structure and physical stabiliza-tion of organic carbon constituents within the forest floor and mineral soil matrix are pivotal factors in the role that SOM plays in environ-mental processes. SOM structure is character-ized using a combination of wet-chemistry and advanced analytical techniques such as Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy.

2. Microorganisms perform numerous criti-cal reactions in a soil, and their communities may vary widely depending on the environ-ment. As many as 10,000 bacterial species may be found in a single gram of soil! Cell

lipid profiling is being used to provide fingerprints of microbial communities that are specific to a given soil habitat.

3. Understanding the role of microorganisms in biogeo-chemical processes requires identification of the specific functions they perform in the soil environment. Us-ing stable-carbon isotope labeling of individual lipid biomarkers will establish the link between specific biogeochemical processes and the microorganisms in-volved.

In collaboration with researchers at the Uni-versity of Alberta, other Universities, and with the Canadian Forest Service, ongoing projects include studies on: forest floor pro-cesses in the boreal mixedwood and their response to variable retention harvesting; humification processes in arboreal organic soils; the small-scale heterogeneity of soil organic matter and its relation to carbon se-questration in soils; and the potential of for-est floor and peat amendments to promote nutrient cycling processes in oil sand rec-lamation. Grants from NSERC (Natural Sci-ences and Engineering Research Council of Canada), CFI (Canada Foundation for Inno-vation), SFMN (Sustainable Forest Manage-ment Network) and support from Syncrude Canada Ltd. help fund this research.

Our third objective is to describe the efforts underway to address curriculum change, and constraints for forestry cur-ricula reform at the University of British Columbia, Lakehead University, and University of Alberta. Our findings will also include an analysis of focus group discussions on opportuni-ties and constraints for curriculum reform with the National Aboriginal Forestry Association (NAFA) and the Canadian Forestry Accreditation Board (CFAB). This last objective in-cludes a focus group with CFAB at a meeting after the survey findings are summarized. This will allow CFAB members to benefit from very recent findings and offer suggestions for changes to the professional forest designation and continuing and distance education for foresters, since this board is the key gatekeeper to forestry curriculum change in Canada.

Soil biogeochemicalprocess

Nutrientpools

and forms

Microbialcommunitystructure

Organicmatter

properties

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Climate Change, Extreme Weather Events, and Health-Effects in Alberta

Colin L. SoskolneProfessorDepartment ofPublic Health [email protected]

Climate change is a serious issue. Ex-treme weather and disasters, expected to increase under climate change, can

permanently and profoundly change the lives of communities affected by them. Mortality, morbidity, property loss, and displacement are the direct consequences of extreme weather. They can also disrupt daily living, affect the quality of water, and can have profound ef-fects on the mental health of those that expe-rience them.

It is difficult to calculate the social—including certain health—costs from weather events. While mass media (including print) is not a conventional source of information for health research purposes, mass media reflects the aspects of social life at any moment in time by documenting features of a population’s experience of an event deemed relevant by reporters.

This research project is funded by Health Canada’s Health Policy Research Program ($182,702 over 24 months, commencing

May 1, 2002). Its goals are to: a) provide the equivalent of a hazard assessment by identifying past extreme weather events and disasters in Alberta, and relate them to the information gleaned from print media reports of the disaster or event as far back as 100 years ago; b) identify the possible direct and indirect health consequences from extreme weather events in Alberta, while keeping in perspective the migration patterns arising from economic hardship (e.g., farmers) and vulnerable populations most affected by ex-treme weather events (e.g., the elderly), and; c) suggest how the combining of weather and health data could be integrated to ad-vance Health Canada’s Sustainable Develop-ment Strategy.

This will contribute to public policy risk management by identifying risks from ex-treme weather events based on historic print media recorded experiences. It is hoped that all sectors thereby will be helped to ensure that we are adequately equipped to cope with future weather extremes.


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Economics and the Environment

Vic AdamowiczProfessorCanada Research Chair (Environmental Economics)Department ofRural [email protected]

My research is aimed at developing methods that integrate environ-mental goods and services into

economic analysis and designing policies and institutions that help capture the importance of environmental services in economic deci-sion-making.

I work in the field of environmental valu-ation, which employs economic theory, statistical methods and survey research to identify the value of environmental goods and services that is implied by economic decisions that individuals, firms and govern-ments make.

One application of this research is the in-corporation of environmental services into benefit/cost analyses of projects and poli-cies. An example is the recent Royal Society of Canada expert panel, of which I was a member, which examined the procedures for assessing the economic benefits of improved air quality standards (health and environmen-tal benefits) against the economic costs of such regulatory change.

Another application is natural resource dam-age assessment (NRDA), which involves determining appropriate compensation in environmental damage and liability cases like oil spills or other environmental injuries. In order to measure these damages in monetary terms, techniques that identify the value of environmental services are required. These include techniques for measuring the role of environmental amenities in property values, recreational choices, product purchases, choices in referenda and other economic decisions.

My research interests also include the in-corporation of economic perspectives into sustainable forest management and the de-velopment and implementation of economic instruments for environmental protection. I have worked to incorporate the multiple values arising from forests into management strategies. This includes consideration of timber, non-timber goods and services, pro-tected areas, biodiversity conservation, and values of Aboriginal People associated with their unique rights to forest resources. My re-search on economic instruments includes the development methods for biodiversity con-servation that provide incentives to industry to conserve scarce landscapes.


environmentalnews

Developing Curricula for the History of Sustainable Design: an Integrative Approach

Joan GreerAssistant ProfessorDepartment Art and [email protected]

ture course in the history of design. Here disciplinary strictures and means of address-ing these are reported. The final aspect to be examined builds on the second. It deals with the development and teaching of a senior undergraduate and graduate level course en-titled “The History and Theory of Sustainable Design,” run first as a pilot project during the winter term (January – April) of 2001.

A premise underpinning my own understand-ing of sustainable design is that its successful practice requires an interdisciplinary and col-laborative approach. It also requires a com-prehensive, “cradle to cradle” consideration – that is, it must undergo a self-conscious analysis testing for sustainable responsibility at all stages. It makes sense (as implied in part one above), therefore, to consider the theory and history of this subject in a similarly integrative and comprehensive fashion. This means looking outward, away from tradition-al design histories for models. In the case of curriculum design, it also means considering the results of the teaching from the students’ point of view and from the point of view of the larger community. Finally, it implies the testing of assumptions and the communicat-ing of findings with a large, diverse scholarly community. My aim, therefore, in keeping with this final point, is 1) to test my own assumptions and experiences to this point and 2) to begin a national and international dialogue with others from various dis-c i p l i n a r y perspectives dealing with similar issues.

It is widely accepted that one of the most urgent challenges to design professionals today relates to the question of sustain-

ability: that is, the problem of how to avoid the exploitation of human and environmen-tal resources in design practice. I have been attempting to address this problem in my teaching and curriculum development proj-ects during the last five years and have found that the subject exists to a certain extent in the literature dealing with design practice. It is, however, seriously underdeveloped in the literature concerning design theory and design history. Currently, I am in the process of developing a theoretical framework for ap-proaching both the research and teaching of design history which allows this problem to be addressed in questions concerning histori-cal as well as contemporary design. This is a long-term project in progress.

To date I have considered three components of the project which deal specifically with course development and teaching. The first outlines a preparatory stage in which insti-tutional resources were developed and the beginnings of a network to which to turn for ideas and support was established. It consid-ers the role that design practitioners in my own department have had on this project and examines the enrichment provided by an international lecture series organized by designers within my department. It also out-lines the organization and outcome of a panel discussion which served to “test the field” outside my department and to connect with like-minded colleagues in other disciplines at my own institution. The second component traces the development and implementation of a new curriculum for an introductory lec-

Patchy Habitatsand Bird Populations

Susan HannonProfessorBiological [email protected]

My research focuses on costs/benefits for birds of living in

patchy habitats. In particu-lar I look at changes in the predator-prey and host-para-site (cowbirds) relationships in bird populations, avian community composition, population demography and

territorial behaviour after fragmentation of landscapes by forestry or agriculture. Past work has concentrated on reproductive success of birds in agricultural and logged areas, the role of cor-ridors for bird movements, and bird responses to habitat edges and critical thresholds



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Large Carnivore Research

Andrew E. Derocher ProfessorDepartment ofBiological [email protected]

The research in my group centres on the

ecology and conservation of large carnivores in Canada. There is an emphasis on northern Canada and the intent is to build these connections further. While highly charismatic, large carni-vores pose great challenges for research given their low population densities and remote habitats. Species under investigation include polar bears, grizzly bears, and gray wolves. Expansion to wolverines, lynx, and arctic fox are planned for the coming years. Issues under investigation range from the effects of climate change, impacts of oil and gas development, and the effectiveness of parks to conserve large carnivores. In addition, questions pertain-ing to the life history strategies of carnivores

are also explored. The research group is currently

expanding with new graduate students but current research sites include the Beaufort Sea, the Mackenzie Delta, west-ern Hudson Bay, and Banff National Park.

Emphasis is placed on developing and exploiting new technologies to address current wildlife conservation and manage-ment issues. These techniques may include GPS satellite telemetry, isotope analyses, and DNA fingerprinting. Partnerships with several federal, provincial, and territorial governments play a large role in developing viable research projects on species that are often expensive to study.

in forest cover. I have worked in industrial forestry, agricul-tural and naturally patchy land-scapes extending from near Stettler, through the Beaver-hills region, to Athabasca, Lac la Biche, Slave Lake and Calling Lake areas of Alberta.

Examples of studies include: • Influence of land use practices on breeding productivity of sharp-tailed grouse • Influence of fire on habitat quality for black-backed and three-toed woodpeckers.• Critical thresholds of forest cover for forest raptors and resident birds• Spatial and temporal variation in passerine bird abundance in the boreal forest• Source/sink dynamics of American redstarts in forest patches in an agricultural landscape• Designing reserve areas for birds in the Yellowstone to Yukon region• Influence of buffer strip width along lakes on bird community composition and

territorial position of ovenbirds



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Economics of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation

Peter FlynnProfessorPoole Chair inManagement for EngineersDepartment ofMechanical Engineeringpeter.fl [email protected]

Lake Sediments: What the Record Shows

Alexander WolfeAssociate ProfessorDepartment of Earth and Atmospheric [email protected]

Canada faces a requirement to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), mainly CO2. Understanding of alterna-

tives and their costs is limited.

Our group focuses on the economics of GHG mitigation, by defi ning a technical alternative and developing full life cycle economics.

One study, with Jay Cameron and Amit Ku-mar, looked at the cost of generating power from biomass in Alberta. Power from biomass is carbon neutral because the regrowth of the biomass takes back up emitted carbon.

We evaluated the whole forest, forest harvest residues (limbs and branches), and straw as biomass sources. None of these alternatives is economic in comparison to coal, and each would require a “carbon credit” to be competitive.

The whole forest is the most economic of the three fuels, but its usage precludes the alternative use for pulp or lumber. Straw is close in cost to wood from the whole

Lake sediments record environmental condi-tions continuously, day

after day, year after year. Paleolimnology is the sci-ence that uses information archived in lake sediments to unravel the magnitude and rates of changes hav-ing occurred in lake basins, whether ultimately driven by natural or human phe-nomena.

Most of this research con-cerns processes that take place on timescales of

forest, but its diffuse ownership would in-volve complex considerations about secur-ing a long-term fuel supply. Forest harvest residues are an ideal source in that they are typically burned at roadside, but because of their wide dispersion the cost of power is quite high.

The deep ocean is a vast reservoir of carbon, which moves there via a “biological pump,” a rain of dead plants and animals, and by transport in downwelling currents.

There is some evidence that downwelling currents are weakening.

In another study with Songjian Zhou, we have investigated the cost of creating in-cremental downwelling currents by cooling seawater. We have evaluated a number of standard industrial techniques, such as cool-ing towers, as well as some novel methods like forming incremental sea ice by pumping seawater onto ice sheets. The formation of incremental sea ice is the least expensive way of making additional downwelling cur-rent, but it is not attractive as a means of storing carbon, since the cost is as high or higher than direct injection of CO2 into the ocean.

Future studies will include an assessment of the cost of recovering energy from animal waste.

decades to centuries, and are therefore not well con-strained by traditional envi-ronmental monitoring pro-grams. This does not mean that slow processes are not important. On the contrary, the delicate balance achieved over millennia between soils, vegetation, surface waters, and climate is what ultimate-ly determines an ecosystem’s resilience to environmental stresses.

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Ocean Climate Modelling

Paul G. MyersAssistant Professor Department Earth and Atmospheric [email protected]

Over the last decade or two has come the realization that mankind may be affecting the climate system (IPCC,

2001) and thus a detailed understanding of how the system works is needed in order to attempt to predict how it might change in the future. The large thermal capacity of the ocean, with its key role in transporting heat from the tropics to the high-latitudes and the ability to store anthropogenic and natural greenhouse gases all make understanding the ocean a crucial first step towards understand-ing the coupled climate system.

A recent attempt to learn more about how the ocean behaves and evolves is the In-ternational Argo Network, an array of au-tonomous profiling floats that will provide a global coverage of time-varying temperature and salinity. Profiling from depths of 2000 m to the surface at ten day intervals, this float array will help to provide near real-time in-formation on upper ocean properties as well as currents at the surface and 2000 m.

At the University of Alberta we are taking ad-vantage of the large amounts of high quality data in the Gulf of Alaska, where at present there are over forty Argo floats. This data abundance will allow for mixed-layer depths to be calculated and mapped in a broad re-gion of the central Gulf of Alaska. Mixed layer depth has important ramifications upon the nutrient supply to the upper water column and thus biological productivity. The work will be validated by comparisons with the data col-lected by regular DFO research cruises.

However, some questions about the ocean cannot be answered by just examining the observational data records. This means that to further our understanding, we have to the incorporate what we know of oceanic physics into numerical (computer) models to simulate the behavior of the ocean.

These models range from simple models examining one specific aspect of the ocean to complex three-dimensional ‘general cir-culation models’ that are based on a series of seven (or more) coupled mathematical equations and which take weeks to run on modern high performance computers.

Models being used at the University of Al-berta in the physical oceanography group, range from a simplified model examining the paleo-reconnection of the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and the implications of this event to a highly detailed general circulation model of the sub-polar North Atlantic. Simu-lations of the North Atlantic have focused on the sensitivity of that basin to changes in freshwater fluxes associated with atmo-spheric variability, as well as the additional input of Arctic ice melt and runoff. Addition-ally, ongoing model development work is focused on how the model represents the underlying ocean bottom topography, as well as how eddy processes are param-eterized. Modelling studies are also being conducted to examine both the present day circulation of the Mediterranean as well as its paleo-circulation during the Holocene.

My students and I examine a range of questions using pale-

olimnology, in most cases by studying the minuscule glass fossils of diatoms preserved in sediments young and old.

Diatoms are algae that, in ad-dition to producing an excel-lent fossil record, are especial-ly sensitive to subtle changes in lake-water chemistry.

Right now, studies in the lab are centered on themes that address the ecological im-pacts of climate change on lakes, as well as atmospheric deposition of fixed nitrogen, which may be transported to

regions far-removed from di-rect human influences, such as the Arctic.

Other studies address warm intervals of the geological past, such as the Eocene (~50 million years ago), which provides a useful analogy for future greenhouse warming, as well as clues concerning diatom evolutionary patterns. But diatoms are not the only relevant information in lakes sediments.

Recently, the lab has com-pleted a study that uses

trace metals associated with ore-smelting to reconstruct pre-Columbian metallurgy in southern Bolivia. This information adds substan-tially to an archaeological record fraught by centuries of looting. It is clear that a broad range questions in environmental history can be addressed using pa-leolimnology. The scope of this interdisciplinary science is limited only by the imagi-nation of the investigator.



environmentalnews

Environmental Microbiology

Julia Foght Associate Professor Biological [email protected]

My environmental research comprises several collaborative projects having two main themes: biodegradation of

hydrocarbons (for clean-up of oil spills), and the microbiology of cold environments.

Subglacial microbiology: Work with M. Sharp (Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, UAlberta) has demonstrated the presence of active, diverse communities of microbes living beneath warm-based glaciers such as John Evans Glacier, Nunavut. Until a few years ago, no-one imagined that microbes would inhabit such a dark, cold, inaccessible place, nor that they could have a significant impact on the chemistry of glacial meltwaters. Now we are glimpsing the diversity of unicellular life in the waters and sediments beneath glaciers (see Figure, showing different bac-terial colonies cultured from a subglacial water sample). This interdisciplinary research combines geochemistry, glaciology and both classical and molecular microbiology. The findings have implications for global carbon budget balances in the last interglacial period (as well as being just plain “cool”!).

Antarctic bioremediation: Work with J. Ais-labie (Landcare Research, New Zealand) has focussed on biodegradation of fuel-contami-nated soils in the Ross Sea region of Antarcti-ca. We have characterized individual bacterial species isolated from these soils, defining the properties that make them potentially useful for cleaning up hydrocarbon spills around research and refuelling stations. We have also begun using molecular analyses to describe the microbial phylogenetic diversity of these fuel-impacted soils. Recently we started inves-tigating the potential of non-photosynthetic

nitrogen-fixing bacteria to accelerate biore-mediation of hydrocarbon-contaminated Ant-arctic soils. These circumstances may have parallels in Arctic soils, and research with J. Braddock (University of Alaska, Fairbanks) is addressing this possibility.

Hydrocarbon degradation: Work with K. Big-gar and others in Civil and Environmental Engineering (UAlberta) deals with natural attenuation of petroleum hydrocarbons in subsurface sediments and groundwaters hav-ing mean annual temperatures below 10°C. We are studying the anaerobic processes occurring at these sites, and the factors that influence the chemical and microbiological reactions there. This information will be valuable in creating guidelines for cleanup of cold oil-contaminated subsoils at oil drill-ing wells, etc. I have also carried out contract research for Environment Canada, develop-ing consortia of microbes for degradation of crude oils. These consortia can be used to test the performance of commercial oil spill bioremediation agents that are sold for use in the environment after a spill.

Interactions of hydrocarbons with microbes: This work underpins many of the environ-mental studies, but is laboratory-based and more fundamental in nature. Collaborative work with M. Gray (Chemical and Materi-als Engineering), is investigating the uptake and export of hydrocarbons across bacterial membranes. Another project is examining biological upgrading of petroleum, using cells as “biocatalysts”. This work has the potential to improve the quality of fuels and reduce environmental costs associated with conventional upgrading of crude oils.


environmentalnews

Vertebrate Ecology in theBoreal Forest and Aspen Parklands

Cindy PaszkowskiAssociate ProfessorDepartment ofBiological [email protected]

I am a vertebrate ecologist who conducts research on birds, amphibians,

and fishes, including stud-ies of community ecology, trophic interactions, popula-tion ecology, and behaviour. My graduate students and I conduct research in a variety of environments throughout the province of Alberta: the boreal forest, foothills, and parkland. These studies have addressed basic ecological questions, as well as more applied problems posed by the forestry sector (Alberta Pacific and Weyerhaeuser), energy sector (Syncrude), and conservation organiza-tions (Alberta Conservation Association, Ducks Unlim-ited, and Elk Island National Park). Our research employs large-scale surveys, field ex-periments involving natural lakes and artificial ponds, laboratory experiments, and stable isotope analysis.

Some of the recent projects conducted my research group include:

• Use of restored wetlands by birds and amphibians

• Trophic interactions between aquatic birds, fishes and macroinvertebrates

• Habitat use of amphibians along a distur-bance gradient in the aspen parkland

• Beaver ponds as amphibian habitat in the boreal foothills

• Effects of fishes on survival and growth of amphibian larvae

• Population ecology of the Canadian toad and western toad

• Effects of forest harvesting and fire on boreal fish communities

Environmental News is published by the Centre (Editor: Beverly Levis, Design: Creative Services). Articles, photos, commentary and suggestions should be submitted to:

Environmental News8901 HUB Mall,University of Albertawww.ualberta.ca/[email protected]: (780) 492-5825

University of Alberta

Environmental Researchand Studies Centre

ISSN: 1705-2343

Mailing Address:3-23 Business BuildingUniversity of AlbertaEdmonton, Alberta, CanadaT6G 2R6

Guidelines for authors: www.ualberta.ca/ERSC/guide.htmSeminars: www.ualberta.ca/ERSC/es.htm

Mathematical Modelling of Terrestrial Ecosystems

Robert F. GrantAssociate ProfessorDepartment ofRenewable [email protected]

How do we affect the productivity of our agricultural and forest ecosystems when we disturb them during food

and fibre production? How will this produc-tivity be affected by climate change? How sustainable is this productivity, and what are its environmental impacts?

These are some of the most basic questions being asked today of ecosystem scientists. However the answers to these questions are complex and require the synthesis of knowl-edge from diverse scientific disciplines such as chemistry, physics and biology. This synthesis is more and more being achieved through the use of a language common to all these dis-ciplines – mathematics, which is encoded in computer models of terrestrial ecosystems.

Our research project is dedicated to the construction and testing of a comprehensive mathematical model (‘ecosys’) of natural and managed ecosystems. The long-term objec-tives of this program are to provide a means to anticipate ecosystem behaviour under different environmental conditions (soils, cli-mates and managements). This research pro-gram will support planning for the impacts of global climate change and soil management

on crop and forest production, soil quality, greenhouse gas emissions and uptake, and associated resource requirements (e.g. wa-ter, fertilizer) as part of several national and international research programs in which we are participating. In some of our recent publications, we have addressed such ques-tions as:

• How will climate change affect the car-bon balances of arctic tundra and boreal forests?

• How are phosphorus losses in runoff and sediment determined by manure applica-tion in agricultural fields?

• How are N2O emissions determined by fertilizer applications in agricultural fields?

• How can we calculate CH4 emissions from wetlands?

• How do elevated CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere affect crop productivity and water use?

• How do agricultural land use practices affect long-term soil carbon levels?

• How does drought affect productivity and carbon accumulation in grasslands?

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