News

The Water Institute has published a new article on Dr. Rooney's contributions to microplastic research, highlighting the risks that microplastics pose to the Laurentian Great Lakes.

While evidence of concern is quickly mounting, there is still a lot of uncertainty. We cannot yet say how much pollution is too much, or what monitoring thresholds and alerts should be. We also have not collectively agreed on the best monitoring approach, explained Rooney, “but the efforts of the Microplastics Work Group took us a big step closer to this for the Great Lakes.”

The article, titled "Rebecca Rooney contributes to binational initiative to standardize microplastics research," is available on The Water Institute's website.

Post-doc opportunity in conservation biology: species at risk (SAR) & invasive species in a Priority Place

Rooney Lab defends their title as door decorating champions in 2017 against fierce competition!

This year our design traced the environmental drivers (namely pumpkin spice pollution) leading to the increased expression of the XMAS gene and resulting increase in Christmas Morph relative abundance in the fir tree population.  As you'd expect, there were bottom-up effects on the squirrel population.  Very scientific.