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Ocean Environment and Ecology

Through this research theme, we aim to reduce ocean pollution, enhance monitoring of ocean dynamics and biogeochemistry, and strengthen the observation of coastal, marine, and Arctic biodiversity and ecology.

We are leveraging advanced marine technologies in our research, incorporating innovative sensors deployable from novel platforms such as drones. We are leading the deployment of low-cost, high-performance sensors on diverse platforms to support ocean monitoring by coastal and Indigenous communities.

Recent progress includes new miniature oxygen sensors for hypoxia detection and low-cost sensors for pH and plankton characterization, supporting adaptive planning for marine resource stewardship and hazard mitigation. These advancements enable real-time response to environmental hazards, supporting data-driven policy decisions for sustainable ocean management.

Our research also investigates biodiversity in coastal, marine, and Arctic ecosystems, focusing on the impacts of ocean warming and other ocean changes on biological productivity and species distributions. By studying fluid dynamics, we also model the distribution of particle pollution, including microplastics, in oceans and rivers.

Key research topics: ocean pollution, ocean dynamics and warming, climate change impacts, ocean biogeochemistry, and coastal, marine and Arctic biodiversity and ecology

Researchers


Related Publications



Title Publication Date Authors
Marine heatwaves modulate food webs and carbon transport processes
Incorporating sparse labels into hidden Markov models using weighted likelihoods improves accuracy and interpretability in biologging studies
Anthropogenic impacts on seagrass habitat connectivity: a model to explore potential links between human activity and marine invertebrate metapopulation persistence
An Experimental Test of Dispersal Limitation of Species Diversity in Eelgrass Meadows
Impact of coagulation characteristics on the aggregation of microplastics in upper-ocean turbulence
Migratory movements of fin whales from the Gulf of St. Lawrence challenge our understanding of the Northwest Atlantic stock structure
Drivers and potential consequences of observed extreme hypoxia along the Canadian Pacific continental shelf
Aggregation of microplastic and biogenic particles in upper-ocean turbulence
Impact of warming and deoxygenation on the habitat distribution of Pacific halibut in the Northeast Pacific
Prokaryotic responses to a warm temperature anomaly in northeast subarctic Pacific waters

First Nations land acknowledegement

The PRISMS research excellence cluster acknowledges that our work takes place on the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh, and in the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Nation and their peoples.


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