News

A scrappy swamp dotted with reeds, mosses, insects and frogs might not look like anything of value, but to Professor Rebecca Rooney, these ecosystems are priceless.

Rooney, an expert in wetland ecology with the Department of Biology at the University of Waterloo, says wetlands are workhorses, providing numerous “environmental services” to us for free.

Professor Mark Servos and his team have been working since early in the pandemic to develop and validate methods to detect the ruminants of SARS-CoV-2 gene fragments in wastewater.

Waterloo Biology is one of the top ten biology programs in Canada for 2021, according to the influential annual Maclean’s magazine ranking program.

In results released last week, Waterloo’s Biology program was placed 10^th for 2021, rising in the rankings from 13^th in 2020 and 15^th in 2019.

In an era of invasive species, climate change, and rapid habitat loss, ecological systems may never experience a “stable equilibrium”, according to Kim Cuddington, a professor in Waterloo’s Department of Biology. Instead, the system may be experiencing temporary behaviour, a transient, which differs markedly from what we predict in the long term.

Three researchers from the Faculty of Science received more than $2 million in Strategic Partnership Research Grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) last week. Recipients included Professors Michael Power and Trevor Charles from the Department of Biology and Professor Juewen Liu from the Department of Chemistry.

The Faculty of Science is pleased to announce Assistant Professor Andrew Doxey as the first recipient of the Science Excellence in Early Career Research Award (SEECRA).

Professor Brian Dixon hosts Sajeev Kohli in his University of Waterloo lab, guiding him on experiments and helping to promote his work to the outside world.

Last week, Sajeev Kohli, a local Waterloo teen from Sir John A. MacDonald Secondary School, won the International BioGENEius Challenge, held in Boston, Massachusetts.

While humans and other species share some of the same genetic information, new research found that humans are unique among mammals when it comes to the types and diversity of microorganisms on our skin. This difference could have implications for our health and immune systems.

More Canadian cities will experience damage from the emerald ash borer than previously thought. As a result of climate change and fewer days of extreme cold, the beetle may eat its way further north than originally estimated.

University of Waterloo researcher Heidi Swanson is set to receive $1.2 million, over five years, from the Federal government’s $75 million Coastal Restoration Fund to perform community-partnered research. The aim of the project is to restore fish in the Coppermine River and other river systems near Kugluktuk, Nunavut.