The Government of Canada has made a $3 million investment in the exemplary work being done by four Dalhousie researchers.
The funding is being awarded through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada’s Strategic Partnership Grant program. The goal of these grants is to connect Canada’s brightest researchers with industry, government and other partners to transform fundamental science into tangible benefits for Canadians.
“When researchers, businesses, and governments work together, they can turn their discoveries into the innovations that will improve the lives of all Canadians,” said the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Sport, in a news release. “That is why our government is investing in the partnerships that will bring our best and brightest together. When we invest in science and research, we invest in us all.”
A total of 75 research projects across Canada received more than $44 million in funding.
Highlights of funded projects:
Advanced Alloy Surface Modification Using Ultrasonic Pulsed Waterjets
Dr. Kevin Plucknett, Professor, Faculty of Engineering
In order to improve corrosion resistance and help prevent fatigue and wear, metallic alloys can be subjected to surface modification. This is traditionally achieved by “shot peening” which consists of hitting the metallic alloy with hard beads. Laser peening approaches are also available.
Recently, a company called VLN Advanced Technologies (based in Ottawa, Ontario), have developed a new ultrasonic pulsed water jet manufacturing (UPWJ) technique, which allows for metal cutting and the controlled removal of surface coatings. It has also been shown that surface preening is possible with this innovative tool.
Dr. Plucknett and his team will be investigating the effects of UPWJ peening on three commercially important GKN alloys, fabricated using powder metallurgy, and powder-forged Fe-alloy or additive manufacturing. All of these materials are of major importance to the automotive and aerospace industries in Canada. The team will undertake characterisation of UPWJ peened materials, including assessing their fatigue resistance and surface hardening.
Interactions between migration, marine survival, and disease susceptibility in Atlantic Salmon
Dr. Glenn Crossin, Associate Professor, Faculty of Science
Healthy, sustainable Atlantic salmon stocks are important economically, ecologically and culturally to Canada. However, many populations have been severely decreasing since the 1980s, leading to an endangered listing for many populations by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. Currently, the greatest impacts to their survival have been linked to juvenile survival upon entry into the marine environment.
Dr. Crossin and his team will be using acoustic telemetry and cutting edge transcriptomic techniques to address several strategic issues:
With their partners at Fisheries and Oceans Canada and at the Atlantic Salmon Federation, they will examine the role of naturally occurring pathogens in mediating the migration behaviour, physiological condition, and mortality of juvenile salmon in populations throughout the Maritimes, Quebec, and Newfoundland & Labrador.
·They will be looking at the interactions of wild salmon with aquaculture net-pens throughout the region by quantifying residency patterns, migration pathways, and mortality near net-pens, and linking these to pathogen profiles emanating from active aquaculture sites via eDNA sampling.
·The effects of hatchery rearing on the behaviour, physiology and survival of juvenile salmon will also be examined by comparing hatchery reared fish and wild fish in the same river system.
The findings from Dr. Crossin’s studies will be used to develop models that examine the degree to which mortality can be explained by aquaculture and hatchery operations versus natural environmental variation, and whether these are actually preventing the recovery of Atlantic salmon populations.
Use of acoustic telemetry, local knowledge and First Nations’ traditional knowledge to determine the movements and habitat use of valued aquatic species, and their environmental correlates
Dr. Sara Iverson, Professor, Faculty of Science and Scientific Director, Ocean Tracking Network
This three-year research project aims to enable better stewardship of marine resources by creating a collaboration among Mi’kmaw rights holders, local knowledge holders, academia, government, and other local stakeholders to increase the understanding of the movements and seasonal habitat use of valued species in the Bay of Fundy and Bras d’Or Lake.
Building on the strengths of Mi’kmaq, local and Western knowledge systems, acoustic telemetry programs are being designed and executed to document the movements and habitat use of American lobster, American eel, and Atlantic tomcod and link them to environmental conditions.
The results from this project will be used to better understand the local movements of these valued species, and support the access, transfer and ownership of knowledge to communities to support their decision-making processes.
Partners include: Unama'ki Institute of Natural Resources, Mi’kmaw Conservation Group, Ocean Tracking Network (Dalhousie University), Acadia University, Marine Institute of Natural and Academic Science, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dalhousie University
Climate and Ocean Dynamics informing Resources Management and Adaption Policy
Dr. Markus Kienast, Professor, Faculty of Science
The abundance, distribution, and size of fish species are not only profoundly affected by human influences such as fisheries, they are also intrinsically linked to changing ocean conditions such as water temperatures and nutrient regimes. However, very little is known about the historical link between ocean environmental change and ecosystems in general, and fish communities in particular.
Dr. Kienast and his team will be generating high resolution and quantitative reconstructions of ocean dynamics in relation to fish abundances in the Northwest Atlantic ecosystem during the last 2,000 years. This time span covers both the pre-Colonial and post-European settlement world.
Records of changing environmental conditions derived from sedimentary, coral and mollusk records will be combined with records of variations in fish abundance, size, and community structure from both fish microfossils preserved in the sedimentary record and from archaeological and historical data. These data sets will be compared with realistic coupled climate biogeochemistry-ecosystem-fishing hindcast models to affirm the impact and interaction of climatic and human stressors on ecosystem change, and test specific hypotheses concerning the ability of the Atlantic Canadian Provinces to provide ecosystem services in the form of fisheries.
This highly innovative approach of combining diverse time series will, for the first time, provide reference points on a shifting baseline for climate change adaptation policy and ecosystem management. It will also directly inform integrative models to improve predictive capacity of ecosystem forecasts under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects climate scenarios.
More information on the NSERC Strategic Partnership Grants can be found on the website.
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