Tag: ecology
Prize-winning undergraduate research takes stock of U of T’s sustainability-related courses, groups and projects
Rashad Brugmann says there’s been a “groundswell” of support for sustainability initiatives on campus – an apt choice of words considering one example lay right under his feet.
He and fellow University of Toronto students Nicolas Côté and Nathan Postma walked the narrow lanes between crops growing on Trinity College’s rooftop garden, including heirloom tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers and three kinds of eggplant.
Climate change could impact omega-3 levels worldwide, U of T researchers find
Climate change won’t just bring rising sea levels and more extreme weather — it could also impact your dinner plate.
A new University of Toronto study suggests that a warmer world will decrease the availability of a nutrient that is key to development and brain health. The study, published in the journal Ambio, investigates worldwide production of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), a naturally occurring essential omega-3 fatty acid. The group of molecules is needed for higher-level brain functioning and cognition, memory, eyesight, particularly at crucial stages in fetal brain development.
Forests for the future: U of T researcher seeks to make trees more resilient amid a changing climate
Katharina Braeutigam, a plant epigeneticist at the University of Toronto, wants to grow trees fit for a future climate.
By studying plants at the molecular level, Braeutigam looks at how trees respond to external signals such as drought, and how they record “memories” of stress. She also researches how they respond to internal signals – specifically those that determine sex.
The last straw: U of T ecology expert, students create inventory of plastic litter that collects in the Don River
On a hot and muggy July day, Chelsea Rochman, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto, and a group of students made their way to the mouth of the Don River, armed with gardening gloves, garbage bags and a first aid kit.
U of T scientists draw new connections between climate change and warming oceans
It happened once before, and it could happen again. That’s the warning from ocean scientists at the University of Toronto and the University of California, Santa Cruz in a study published recently in Science that shows how an increase in CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere more than 50 million years ago dramatically changed the chemistry of the planet’s oceans.
Plastic not just a problem in our oceans, also affecting the Great Lakes: U of T research
Chelsea Rochman, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto, says we should be paying close attention to what’s taking place closer to home in the Great Lakes.
“The contamination in the Great Lakes and other bodies of freshwater from plastics and microplastics is ubiquitous,” says Rochman, who looks at plastic debris and its associated chemical contaminants.