Research Team >> M.Sc. Students >> Erick Elgin

Erick Elgin (2011-present)

I love aquatic systems! Many childhood explorations of my parent’s wetland in central Minnesota not only fascinated me by the many plants and micro landscapes these plants created, but also by leeches that would cover my legs during each exploration.  I eventually advanced my interest by going to the University of Minnesota, Crookston where I received my B.S. in Natural Resources and Water Resource Management.  During my B.S. I gained experience outside the classroom in prairie restoration, lakeshore restoration, and wildlife habitat surveys of shallow lakes throughout Minnesota.  After graduating I gained invaluable experience at the University of Notre Dame working on a large-scale early detection monitoring survey for aquatic invasive species and a novel detection technique called environmental DNA.  I plan to continue my love of aquatic systems here in Calgary by researching the shallow lakes of Alberta Some shallow lakes are almost always clear, some almost always turbid, and a third group displays high variation from year to year.  My research will focus on the latter set of lakes and examine the influence different seasonal variables might have on regime shifts found in shallow lake ecosystems.  I will focus on the role timing of spring phytoplankton and macrophyte growth have on determining annual variation in turbidity in shallow lakes.  I plan to use different modeling techniques coupled with empirical field surveys to explore my questions.  By combining these methods, I hope to better understand the effects positive and negative feedbacks have on the structure and state of these ecosystems.