Research Interests
My research interests centre on processes that affect (1) the stability of aquatic communities and ecosystems, and (2) relationships between sustainable growth and water quality and quantity. I am particularly interested in the role of biota and their interactions on the flux of energy and materials in food webs. My NSERC sponsored research considers the role of rooted aquatic macrophtyes and food web structure on the state in which shallow prairie lakes are found. Macrophytes may be stabilizing components of shallow lakes that allow them to exist in a relatively clear state. However, macrophyte biomass is also correlated to the rate and occurrence of winter anoxia, with implications to fish populations. Collaborative research is examining water quality and quantity in South Saskatchewan headwater rivers, and how this might change with future development. Ecologic and economic models will be coupled to create an expert system to allow evaluation of "what if" scenarios of change in light of full-cost accounting. This project considers land use and the delivery of material to rivers, as well as in-stream processes by biota.
Recently, my students and I have begun projects related to the occurrence and evolution of antimicrobial resistance associated with domestic wastewater treatment. Projects will initally use a meta-genomics approach to inventory the bacteria present in Biological Nutrient Removal processes and receiving environments. Follow-up studies will seek to identify upregulated AMR genes given environmental signals. We also have interest in co-evolution of AMR and metal resistance. A third project is using eDNA approaches to understand the occurrence of AMR genes associated with microplastics in wastewater biosolids.
In addition to these research foci, I have been working with the IBM Alberta Centre for Advanced Studies and the IBM Canada Centre for Advanced Studies over the last few years to develop a water data collaboration platform, called SWIM. SWIM has been created to allow stakeholders to upload spatially-explicit data to a common database to break down data silos and allow data sharing and collaboration. SWIM also allows visualization of water data to easily see spatial patterns. Click on the bullet below to go to SWIM's homepage, which is hosted in the University of Calgary's Data Centre.
>> Shallow Prairie Lakes
>> Rivers
>> Antimicrobial Resistance and One Health
>> Sustainable Watershed Integrated Management (SWIM)
