Department of Biological Sciences

A significant find by a University of Lethbridge graduate student has led to a key paper in the International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife, as well as a touching tribute to one of the most respected aquatic biologists in North America.  

Graduate student Molly Tilley and her supervisor, Dr. Cam Goater, have characterized the life cycle of M. rasmusseni.

As an undergraduate student, Molly Tilley found large, white, disfiguring lesions surrounding the eyes of fathead minnows in the University Pond. Her observation kicked off a long process of discovery that uncovered what she and supervisor Dr. Cam Goater refer to as an “emerging parasite” that has the ability to disrupt the aquatic food chain. Given its prominence as a new species and being identified in southern Alberta waters, the duo felt it was fitting for the parasite to be named after retired ULethbridge professor Dr. Joe Rasmussen — Myxobolus rasmusseni.

“Joe and I had been close friends and colleagues for many years,” says Goater. “His stature within Canadian science circles is legendary — I can’t think of an award in his field that he hasn’t won. Naming this parasite after him was another way to honour his range of contributions. To me, he is the top aquatic biologist in the country, maybe North America, and nobody is more deserving of a recognition of this type.”

University of Lethbridge researchers have been monitoring plant life in Waterton Lakes National Park to see how they’re responding following the massive Kenow wildfire in 2017.

“We know we have increasing fires on the landscape recently, so plant communities are going to have to deal with that,” says Dr. Jenny McCune, a ULethbridge biology professor. “But then we also have increases in human-caused stressors like recreation. There’s a real question about how those two different sources of stress will interact and whether one will magnify the effects of the other.”

Jed Lloren, a master's student, and undergraduate field assistants David Musk and Kirsty McFadyen survey the plant community at a burned site.

In the second and third growing seasons after the fire, McCune and her students examined both burned and unburned plots that were originally surveyed in the mid-1990s to compare the plant species present. They wanted to know how plant life is being affected by stressors like wildfire and increased human presence.

Inland waters including ponds and wetlands are one of the largest natural sources of methane. Pound for pound, methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Now, a University of Lethbridge-led study has found that many of the ponds and wetlands dotting the Canadian Prairies emit less methane than predicted in part due to their elevated salt content, making previous estimates highly inaccurate. 

“We came up with new prairie-specific models and estimates that were much lower than expected based on models developed in other parts of the world,” says Dr. Matthew Bogard, a ULethbridge biology professor and Canada Research Chair in Aquatic Environments. “We were very conservative in our calculations and even so, we found that emissions were drastically overestimated.

Their study was recently published in Nature Communications.

Potatoes are an important economic crop in southern Alberta and, around the world, the humble potato is a key component of global food security.

Researchers from the University of Lethbridge have been awarded nearly $250,000 through the Agriculture Funding Consortium to improve sustainable potato production by looking at ways to reduce disease in the field and in storage and to increase production while minimizing the use of resources.