Articles tagged with: Michael Pisaric

  • New research by geography alumnus looks at fire history in southwest Yukon Territory

    Tuesday, December 04, 2018 | By

    Student in forest taking a tree core sample

    Tyler Prince taking a tree core sample in southwest Yukon Territory. Photo by Kevin Turner.

    New research by Tyler Prince (Brock Geography and Master of Sustainability alumnus), Michael Pisaric, and Kevin Turner was published this week in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. Read more below.

    Abstract:

    Previous research suggests climate warming during the current century is likely to lead to an increase in the frequency and severity of wildfire. Recent wildfire seasons in northern Canada generally support these studies, with some of the worst fire seasons on record occurring during the past decade. While we can readily track the spatial and temporal distribution of these events during recent decades using satellite-derived data, historical records of past fire activity are relatively short. Proxy records of past fire activity are needed to fully understand how fire regimes may be shifting in response to changing climatic conditions. A high-resolution fire record, dating back to the early-Holocene, has been reconstructed using a 512-cm sediment core collected from a small lake in southwest Yukon Territory, Canada. Macroscopic charcoal was counted throughout the core at contiguous 0.5-cm intervals. The core was also analyzed for loss-on-ignition and magnetic susceptibility. Fossil pollen preserved in the lake sediment was analyzed to determine vegetation change throughout the Holocene. Macroscopic charcoal analysis indicates an active fire history throughout the record, with 90 fires occurring throughout the Holocene. CharAnalysis indicates an average signal to noise index of 6.2, suggesting the peaks are significant and detectable from the slowly varying background level. Results suggest the fire regime in this region responds to both top-down (climate) and bottom-up (vegetation) factors. Fire return intervals changed in response to shifts in precipitation and temperature as well as the expansion of lodgepole pine into the region. The shifts in precipitation and temperature were attributed to the oscillation of the Aleutian Low pressure system and fluctuations in climate associated with the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age.

    Access the full paper online.

    Prince, T., Pisaric, M., and Turner, K. (2018). Postglacial reconstruction of fire history using sedimentary charcoal and pollen from a small lake in southwest Yukon Territory, Canada. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, online.

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  • Brock student wins two awards in national science photo competition

    Wednesday, November 21, 2018 | By

    STORY FROM THE BROCK NEWS | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2018 | by 

    Dana Harris calls Nov. 9 her “special day.”

    It was on that day last week that the Master of Sustainability student became a first time aunt, and also the day she was told, in the strictest of confidence, that she had captured two top prizes in a national science research photo competition.

    Harris had to keep the secret of her achievement under wraps until Nov. 14, when the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) announced the winners of its Canada-wide Science Exposed competition.

    The competition showcases images taken during scientific research being conducted in all fields by faculty and student researchers in post-secondary institutions and researchers in public and private research centres.

    Dana Harris photo submission

    Dana Harris’ submission to the NSERC Science Exposed competition
    featuring cells of the jack pine tree.

    Harris received the People’s Choice Award and a Jury Prize for her photo, “Exploring the Jack Pine Tight Knit Family Tree.”

    “It’s a super huge honour to have people sharing my photo, voting on it and just enjoying it,” says Harris. “And, to get that mention from the NSERC jury members was really gratifying.”

    Diane Dupont, Dean of Graduate Studies, said the Faculty is “so proud of Dana and her success in the NSERC Science Exposed photography contest.”

    “To win the People’s Choice Award is an outstanding achievement,” Dupont said. “This award is a testament to the cutting-edge research she is pursuing involving the globally-relevant topic of climate change.”

    Harris’ photo shows phases of developing xylem cells, stained in different colours, that are found in a wood sample cored from the outermost part of a jack pine tree in the Northwest Territories, where she is from.

    The image, shot from a microscope, shows the jack pine tree’s phloem, cambial and xylem cells (blue dye) and mature xylem cells (red dye) in a thin slice of the wood. It is one of a series of images taken weekly over the past year to track the growth of the jack pine tree’s various cells.

    “This type of information is useful for researchers who create climate reconstructions using tree rings as a source of historical climate data,” explains Harris.

    She thanked her supervisor, Professor of Geography and Tourism Studies Michael Pisaric, and her fellow student researchers in Brock’s Water and Environment Laboratory (WEL) for their support.

    “Dana’s research is helping to understand how important tree species in the boreal forest are affected by climate change,” says Pisaric. “Her research also helps to inform larger questions concerning carbon uptake by the boreal forest.

    “Northern regions of Canada are being impacted by changing climatic conditions, including warmer temperatures, changing precipitation regimes and altered frequency and intensity of forest fires and other disturbance agents.”

    The WEL lab is co-directed by Pisaric and Associate Professor of Geography and Tourism Studies Kevin Turner, with the aim to explore how terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in Canada’s North are changing in response to climatic and environmental change.

    Harris says she is happy that research on climate change and environmental conditions in the North were acknowledged with awards in the competition.

    Earlier this year, the photos of 20 researchers from across Canada, including Harris’s entry, were shortlisted and posted on NSERC’s website. People viewing the 20 photos were given the chance to vote for their favourite image. A panel of judges also chose three images that won jury prizes.

    Harris was also a competitor in NSERC’s Science, Action! research video contest,making the first cut of the three-round competition with her video “Jack Pine Growth, NT.”

    NSERC is Canada’s federal funding agency for university-based research, supporting faculty and students through a number of awards. In the most recent round of funding, 18 faculty researchers and nine students received a total of $3.2 million.

    Story reposted from The Brock News.

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  • Geography and Tourism students put skills to the test in central Ontario

    Thursday, October 25, 2018 | By

    FROM THE BROCK NEWS | TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2018 | by 

    Daniel MarshallFourth-year Brock Geography student Daniel Marshall assists his classmates with recording water quality observations on the Drag River during a weeklong experiential education exercise in central Ontario.

    A crisp fall breeze and the smell of pine recently welcomed Daniel Marshall into a different type of learning environment.

    The fourth-year Geography student can normally be found deep in the Mackenzie Chown Complex learning about physical geography. But, during this year’s fall Reading Week, an experiential education trip took him out of his comfort zone and into the field.

    Along with 34 other participants from the Geography and Tourism Department’s Physical Geography and Human Geography and Tourism Studies field courses, Marshall took part in a weeklong experiential learning exercise in central Ontario. The annual trip is designed to connect in-class learning with practical on-site research skills that are necessary for all geographers.

    “Sometimes in the classroom you lose focus on what you are actually studying,” Marshall said. “To be in the field and make the observations myself and get my feet muddy allowed everything to come full circle.”

    While the human geographers and tourism students went into Peterborough to gather data, Marshall and his fellow physical geographers went further afield to places such as Lochlin, Ont., where they collected soil and water samples.

    “We brought a specialized tool and took a sample from about four metres down,” he said. “We got a core that, if interpreted in a lab, could have given us 10,000 years worth of data about the area.”

    The ability to conduct applied research and maintain detailed field notes is a skill Geography and Tourism Studies Department Chair Michael Pisaric considers invaluable.

    “The field courses provide our students with hands-on experience that allows them to put their training and academic studies into practice by connecting first-hand the classroom learning they have done to the real world,” he said.

    Longstanding teaching assistant Darren Platakis, who has worked with countless students in his 10 years helping with the trip, echoed the sentiment.

    “Seeing the growth in their confidence, whether it’s conducting face-to-face interviews or using a new piece of equipment, is very satisfying,” he said.

    Gaining practical experience with tools of the trade provides students with a leg up for when their studies are completed.

    “Nobody wants to hire an advisor who has no field experience,” Marshall said. “An exercise like this makes you more marketable as a person.”

    With days of working to develop useful skills came a sense of unity among participants on the department-wide trip.

    “At the end of the day, we were all reunited as a large group and it was nice to be together,” he said. “We had a few large outdoor gatherings around the fire pits and shared stories of our day. It gave us the opportunity to become a close-knit group and contributed to the closeness of the department as a whole.”

    The work of the students in the area has also led to lasting conservation efforts in the local community.

    “Because of the work of previous classes from Brock, the Lochlin Esker and Wetlands site we visited has achieved Provincially Significant Wetland and Area of Natural and Scientific Interest status,” he said.

    For Marshall, the most eye-opening portion of the week was seeing the way the concepts learned in the classroom actually existed in the environment.

    “You can read as much as you want on a topic, but until you’re actually looking at that feature or talking to those people, there is a huge divide between what the textbooks say and the actual observations you make in the field,” he said. “It really worked for me to help close that gap and approach things in a more well-rounded way.”

    As he prepares to use his newfound experience to take on a thesis and apply for master’s programs, Marshall hopes that others will consider studying Geography as well.

    “Geography is everything and how it’s related,” he said. “Anyone who likes nature, the environment or being outside already loves geography. So, why not study it as well?”

    Visit the department’s website to learn more about Brock University’s Geography and Tourism experiential opportunities.

    Reposted from The Brock News.

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  • Brock-led team collects samples at Crawford Lake to explore possible Anthropocene reference site

    Thursday, August 16, 2018 | By

    WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2018 | by 
    Story from the Brock News


    Brock PhD student Andrea Krueger collects water samples at Crawford Lake as part of Brock University-led research to confirm the Halton Region lake as being a possible location to define a new geologic epoch called the Anthropocene.

    It’s like taking a photograph of Earth every year for a thousand years.

    The difference is that the ‘camera,’ in this case, is a freeze core, a long, hollow aluminum tube filled with a mixture of dry ice and ethanol to cool it to minus 80 degrees Celsius.

    On Tuesday, Aug. 14, a group of researchers from three universities and led by Brock University Professor of Earth Sciences Francine McCarthy used a freeze core to gather layers of sediment spanning the last millennium from the bottom of Crawford Lake in Milton.

    Master’s student Autumn Heyd (left) and PhD student Andrea Krueger were among a Brock University-led research team studying Crawford Lake in Milton to be a possible location to define a new geologic epoch called the Anthropocene.

    The professors and student researchers from Brock, Carleton and McMaster universities used the freeze cores to collect layers of sediments from the bottom of the oxygen-free depths of the lake, creating ‘tree rings’ of sorts.

    They collected the samples in the hopes of confirming a new episode in the world’s geological time scale known as the Anthropocene.

    Sediment and rock layers give scientists clues about the Earth’s plant and animal life, human activity, and other details within the planet’s geological time scale. Earth is officially in the Holocene, but the scientific community has identified the mid-20th century as being the start of the Anthropocene.

    “Because we have those annual layers of sediment in Crawford Lake, we can tell exactly when 1950 is. We can point to a layer and say, ‘That’s 1950,’ then we have the ideal location,” says McCarthy. “Hundreds of years from now, people will be able to come here to find 1950 and that’s the important thing.”

    Gesturing to the raft, McCarthy explains what lies ahead for the research.

    “Over the next year or two, my colleagues and I, along with students, are going to be analyzing and comparing what went on before 1950 and after,” says McCarthy.

    She points out that an obvious example of time stamping would be more lead in the sediment from before gasoline went unleaded.

    If they find what they’re looking for in these sediments, the research team will make a submission to the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), an international group charged with evaluating proposals on where evidence of the Anthropocene can be best seen.

    If the AWG were to vote in favour of using Crawford Lake, the proposal would then be evaluated by the International Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, chaired by Brock Professor of Earth Sciences Martin Head.

    Head, who is also a member of the AWG, says that the Anthropocene is distinctive from the Holocene in that that human activities have shifted the way our planet is now behaving as an integrated system.

    This shift is known as the Great Acceleration, a mid-20th century phenomenon associated with global industrialization, commercialization and a huge increase in energy use.

    “Since the beginning of the Anthropocene, we may have actually exceeded the ability of the Earth’s system to self-regulate in ways that it did before, so that’s why the Anthropocene is important on a number of different levels,” he says.

    Brock researchers at Tuesday’s sediment collection included McCarthy, Head, Professor of Geography and Tourism Studies Michael Pisaric, Biological Sciences PhD student Andrea Krueger and master’s student Autumn Heyd.

    A Brock University-led research team lowers the freeze core into Lake Crawford to collect sediments as part of an effort to identify the lake as being a possible location to define a new geologic epoch called the Anthropocene.

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  • Achievements of Geography and Tourism Studies professors and students recognized by FOSS

    Wednesday, January 31, 2018 | By

    The Department of Geography and Tourism Studies would like to congratulate our professors and students who were recognized last week by Brock’s Faculty of Social Sciences at their annual Celebration of Excellence.

    • Dr. Julia Baird, Assistant Professor (Canada Research Chair, Human Dimensions of Water Resources and Water Resilience)
    • Dr. David Butz, Professor (Brock SSHRC Institutional Grant)
    • Dr. Michael Pisaric, Professor (NSERC Discovery Grant)
    • Dr. Kevin Turner, Assistant Professor (Canada Foundation for Innovation John R. Evans Leaders Fund)
    • Dr. Ebru Ustundag, Associate Professor (Ontario Undergraduate Students Alliance Teaching Excellence Award)
    • Katelyn Pierce, MA in Geography student (Ontario Graduate Scholarship)
    • Connor Dingle, MA in Geography student (Best Major Research Paper)

    Read the full story on the Brock News.

    Graduate student award winners and their supervisors and mentors were among the honorees at the Faculty of Social Sciences Celebration of Excellence. From left, Dawn Zinga, Acting Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Research, Megan Earle and supervisor Gordon Hodson, Xiaomei Zhou and supervisor Catherine Mondloch, Christie Milliken accepting on behalf of Devon Coutts, Ebru Ustundag accepting on behalf of Connor Dingle, and Ingrid Makus, Interim Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences.

     

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