Research published in Ecology took a closer look into the candy-striped spider’s diet and behaviour and found that these spiders use a variety of tactics to take down prey much larger than themselves, including sleeping bees and wasps.
Genome Canada has invested nearly $8 million in two McGill projects as part of a total national investment of $18.1 million in genomics-based research. Through public-private partnerships, these investments will help accelerate the commercialization of genomics and increase its real-world applications.
Scientists are studying the diets of the oceans’ top predators as they change in response to their environments. This is because how much and what they eat can affect how ecosystems function.
And while researchers know that killer whales, also known as orcas, are the oceans’ apex predators, our understanding of their diet — particularly the quantity of each species they consume — remains incomplete. This is especially true for remote populations that cannot be observed year-round.
The McGill Sustainability Systems Initiative (MSSI) has announced the results of its latest Ideas Fund competition. The Ideas Fund awards seed funding to projects led by McGill researchers, enabling them to pursue high-risk, high-reward projects in sustainability research. Congrats to AES Researchers who have received funding for the following projects:
Three of the ten studies honoured by the award-winning science magazine Québec Science have c
Congrats to Africa Ixmucane Flores-Anderson (Enhancing Land Cover Change Analysis in the Tropics) and Scott Sugden (Biogeochemical activity in pioneer soils at biological relevant scales), both of the Department of Natural Resources, who are among the group of twenty-two McGill graduate students who have earned the prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship this year.
Read the article in the McGill Reporter.
Prof. Joann Whalen (NRS) was an invited speaker at a recent session hosted by the AgriEdge program at Morocco’s Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) and the ProAgro Program at the International Labor Organization (ILO).
On November 15, Clarivate Analytics, a company specializing in citation data, published the Highly Cited Researchers 2022 list. Many citations mean a paper has had great influence among scientific peers. A group of 16 McGill researchers made the cut, recognized as some of the most frequently cited scientists and social scientists in the world over the last decade. The 2022 list captures the period from 2011 to 2021.
Read the article in the McGill Reporter.
Exploring the complexity of ecosystems
by John Allemang
Elena Bennett delights in uncertainty.
On September 29th, James McGill Professor Joann Whalen, Natural Resource Sciences, testified as an expert before Canada’s Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry on the topic of “Review and report on the status of soil health in Canada”.
Watch her testimony on ParlVu (09:43:59)
Listen to the story on the season opener of CBC’s Quirks and Quarks.
Co-authored by Prof. Elena Bennett (#NRSMcGill/#McGillBSE) the Guidebook for the Engaged University gives the academy both a vision and a roadmap to a more impactful future, in which universities, including their scholars and staff, catalyze solutions for the world’s most pressing challenges.
Read more at Beyond the Academy
While there is a lot of trial and error, partnering with larger players may be worth it for the Canadian growers, says Mary Doidge, Assistant Professor of Agricultural Economics at McGill University in Montreal. "Companies like Driscoll's that have a little bit more capital might be able to take those risks," she said.
Read the full artilce on CBC.ca
It’s no secret that the internet and social media fuel rampant spread of misinformation in many areas of life. A collective of researchers, including Catherine Scott, Postdoctoral Fellow in McGill University’s Lyman Lab, have explored this phenomenon as it applies to news about spiders. The verdict? Don’t blindly trust anything you read online about these eight-legged arthropods—or anything else for that matter—and always consider the source.