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Six researchers from Dalhousie University Faculty of Agriculture were recently awarded Discovery Grants  to assist them in their research programs.

The award, hosted by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), supports ongoing programs of research with long-term goals. The Discovery Grant program is considered ‘grants in aid’ of research as they provide long term operating funds to support the costs of a research program.

This year, six researchers from a range of different areas of research at Dal AC were awarded Discovery Grants.

Dr. Derek Lynch of the Department of Plant and Animal Sciences was presented with a Discovery Grant to aid in his research of the agro-ecological impact of farming systems. His overall research objectives are to improve the understanding of the agro-ecological impacts of contrasting farming systems, or of variations in management intensity within a given farming system (with respect to such aspects as cropping and vegetative diversity, use of energy, nutrients or tillage, and livestock density etc.),  and the tradeoffs with overall system productivity.

Dr. Lynch explains that agriculture is increasingly recognized as one of the chief causes of environmental degradation through its impact on soil and water resources, loss of habitat and biodiversity, climate change, and pollution though nutrient losses. In response, major industries and organizations globally are promoting an ecological redesign of agricultural systems but the agro-ecological benefits associated with various farming systems and practices, and tradeoffs with productivity, are not well understood.

Dr. Vilis Nams, Department of Environmental Science, also received a Discovery Grant. Dr. Nams’ research focuses on edges, animal dispersal and habitat fragmentation.  He proposes to find out what mechanisms animals use to respond to edges and how that response depends on various aspects of edge shape. Dr. Nams explains that edges surround habitat patches. Habitat patches are formed by human development, which fragments natural habitats into patches. Edges affect how easily animals travel from one habitat patch to another and the stability of their populations hinges on how easily they can travel.

Also awarded a Discovery Grant was Dr. Kirsti Rouvinen-Watt of the Department of Plant and Animal Sciences. Dr. Rouvinen-Watt is looking at the underlying biology of fatty liver disease and the role of inflammation in the development of insulin resistance and excessive iron accumulation within the liver. She will be studying the mink and will be looking at the physiological mechanisms by which liver fat accumulation leads to oxidative stress, liver inflammation, and iron-overload disease. Dr. Rouvinen-Watt has taken on this research because fatty liver disease is rapidly becoming a serious health concern in domestic animals, captive wildlife and humans. 

Dr. David Burton received his Discovery Grant to aid in the research of the impacts of climate change on soil microbial processes. The goal of his research is to understand the impacts of climate and climate change on soil nitrogen transformations and nitrogen losses. Dr. Burton will examine the mechanisms resulting in nitrogen oxide bursts in response to a variety under different climatic triggers. Dr. Burton explains that climate drives the biological processes occurring in soil yet is a poorly described and seldom considered part of nitrogen management in agriculture.

A Discovery Grant was awarded to Dr. Kenny Corscadden to aid in his research on wind energy. Dr. Corscadden is looking to develop new technology to accurately estimate wind shear, or the power of the wind, in certain areas where wind turbines are to be constructed. An estimation of wind shear can be produced using power or logarithmic law models based on anemometer data and vertical extrapolation then used to predict wind speed at the proposed hub height. These methods suffer from high levels of uncertainty which impacts the overall project uncertainty.

Dr. Corscadden explains that wind energy is one of the major contributors to the renewable energy mix. The global industry has experienced significant, sustained growth in installed capacity over the past 15 years and has been predicted to double by 2020. Increasing interest in distributed generation and sub-optimal sites demand an accurate and precise prediction of wind speed and turbine energy output at hub height, a factor that requires a true estimation of wind shear.

The final Discovery Grant awarded on the Dal AC campus this year went to Dr. Chris Cutler of the Department of Environmental Sciences for his research on insecticide-induced hormesis in insects. Although it has long been appreciated that stress, when administered at moderate or high levels, can have deleterious effects on organisms, it is now clear that low levels of stressors, such as poisons, can actually stimulate biological processes. This phenomenon of inhibition of biological effects when a stressor is given at high doses, with stimulation when the organism is exposed to mild amounts of the stressor, is known as “hormesis”.

Dr. Cutler is looking to better understand the nature of pesticide induced hormesis in insects, and to demonstrate the occurrence and potential applications of the hormesis phenomenon for beneficial insects. Dr. Cutler explains that in agriculture, pesticide-induced stimulations of insect population growth have been reported. The resulting “pest resurgences” not only may result in increased crop/commodity damage, but may also lead to additional pesticide treatments, potentially exacerbating non-target impacts, insecticide resistance development, and environmental contamination. Thus, there are economic and environmental incentives to better understand the occurrence and consequences of pesticide-induced hormesis in insects.