Profs Make Headlines
July 28, 2010 - In the News
Prof. Art Schaafsma, director of U of G’s Ridgetown Campus and a professor in crop pest management, is quoted in a news article that appeared in several national news reports this week, including Tuesday’s Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and on CBC news. The story looks at a new crop pest, the western cutworm, that has made its way from corn-belt states in the United States and is now hurting crops in Canada.
Prof. Ryan Norris's recent research showing how the migration route for some monarch butterflies includes flying over the Appalachians was featured in today's Toronto Star.
The integrative biology professor, along with graduate student Nathan Miller, discovered that some monarchs born in the Midwest and Great Lakes fly directly east over the Appalachians and settle along the eastern seaboard.
Previously, it was believed that all monarchs migrated directly north. This new finding solves the long-standing puzzle of why monarchs always appear later on the east coast than in the interior.
The research, which was recently published in Biology Letters, was also featured on CTV News, CBC News as well as numerous other Canadian media publications.
Prof. Rob McLaughlin's recent research showing that foraging behaviour of brook trout is related to the size of a particular region in the fish's brain was featured in Sunday's Toronto Star. Published recently in the journal Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology, this study is a followup to previous research that discovered brook trout display two personality types: fish that are active foragers and appear to be risk takers, and those that are sedentary and apparently more timid.
The Toronto Star also featured an opinion piece written by geography professor Barry Smit and PhD student Tristan Pearce on the science of climate change.
In the article, Smit and Pearce discuss how the recent media coverage of the climategate controversy has directed attention away from the fact that the climate is changing and human activities are a major influence.
They also counteract recent attacks by climate change skeptics against the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by arguing that the IPCC is made of the world's top scientists and the reports produced are among the most thoroughly and comprehensively reviewed scientific assessments.
