April 10 2015
March 27, 2015
March 20, 2015
March 13, 2015
Climate change is expected to increase atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures. In Boreal peatlands, these changes are expected to directly affect decomposition processes through enhanced microbial activity, and indirectly affect decomposition through changes in litter input and decomposability associated with changes in plant species composition. I will use Sphagnum spp., Carex magellanica and Chamaedaphne calyculata litter. First, I will quantify the decomposability and carbon release of the three species grown under ambient and elevated CO2. Next, I will investigate how microbial communities use different carbon compounds under different temperature regimes. Finally, I will evaluate the interactive effects of temperature and elevated CO2 on long-term decomposition. Northern peatlands are carbon sinks; understanding decomposition processes under future climate scenarios will help inform carbon budgets.
March 06, 2015
February 27, 2015
Understanding how animals recognize their kin has been a major challenge for psychologists and behavioural ecologists for decades. Two common mechanisms of kin recognition are familiarity and phenotype matching. When familiarity is used, individuals remember kin whereas when phenotype matching is used, individuals instead compare putative kin to a template of what kin should look (or smell) like. The guppy (Poecilia reticulata) has become an important model species in evolutionary biology. It has been shown that some populations of guppies use familiarity whereas other populations use phenotype matching. Capitalizing on this dichotomy, I will use breeding crosses to establish the inheritance patterns as well as search for the gene or genes underlying the different kin recognition mechanisms.
February 13, 2015
February 06, 2014
January 30, 2015