Jonathan Hornung
Ph.D.

Connie is co-supervised with Dr. Cynthia Pazkowski, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta.

Click here to see Connie's webpage there.

Cormorants have been in the news in Alberta quite a lot in recent years, especially since their numbers have increased so dramatically. Andrea McGregor is wending her way through a maze of model inputs to try to find the most important influences on the Lac LaBiche ecosystem, particularly the fisheries dynamics as influenced by Double-crested Cormorants, American White Pelicans, commercial fishermen, and the fish stock recruitment dynamics themselves.

The dynamic model is to be constructed in EcoPath and will hopefully provide direct guidance for which environmental levers to pull to achieve a more desired fish/predator system than exists right now. Andrea builds on earlier cormorant dietary work by Cindy Paszkowski's student Suzanne Earle and will work closely with Dave Schindler's MSc. student Selma Losic who is studying nutrient dynamics in cormorant colonies.

She has also had the assistance of an NSERC undergraduate research assistant, Jean Arseneau, who examined the role of throat lice in White Pelicans when she wasn't counting cormorants or helping net Andrea's fish. Andrea works as an employee of Sustainable Resource Development with Chris Davis and Dr. Michael Sullivan. Andrea was awarded an NSERC PGS-A in 2006 for her research

Stephen Spencer is a PhD candidate who is also an employee of Alberta Sustainable Resources Department. His research is part of a major adaptive management experiment investigating fish growth rates and survival in relation to fisherman harvest under two different sets of size limits.

Some of the anomalies observed in walleye population structures have been attributed to near complete extirpation of large fish by fishing pressure or alternatively, a reduction in growth rate (stunting) from there being too many small fish for the prey base.

Steven is investigating whole lake experiments on 6 popular Alberta walleye fishing lakes. He is co-supervised by Drs. Lee Foote and Michael Sullivan.

Lynnette Dagenais is a graduate student who started her MSc with me in 2006. Her work is to build on the concept of breeding and migrating bird use as a biological indicator of oil sands reclamation effectiveness.

Alberta's CEMA (Cumulative Effects Management Association) has supported this research with a 2-year grant and Lynnette will be seeking NSERC Industrial Post graduate support as well. Her first field season saw her complete 6 rounds of sampling over 31 wetlands of various ages and conditions to help populate her landscape model of nesting efforts. Lynnette will contrast wetland bird richness with terrestrial richness; time since reclamation will be compared to bird use; and vegetation variables will be measured as a predictor of bird habitat suitability to help provide guidance on what plant architecture restoration should strive for.

Lynnette has an opportunity also to make longitudinal comparisons with existing data sets from the region, in fact many of the same wetland sites, with a systematic bird survey carried out by researcher John Gulley 26 years ago. Lynnette will spend 2 summers and parts of the fall and winter studying bird distributions in the Fort MacMurray region.

Clearly there is no money in studying caves in Alberta and that is too bad because Dave Critchley is an exceptional spelunker who initially wanted to incorporate his informal studies, cave-rescue techniques, and extensive knowledge of the cave systems of the northern Rockies into a graduate degree. Alas, he has taken on a separate challenge; understanding how bogs and wet meadows can be re-created following extreme disturbances such as peat harvesting operations.

Dave is working in close association with Drs. Line Rochefort, NSERC Industrial Chair in Peatland Ecology and Lee Foote to lay out a multi-year, multi-area, replicated experiment on wet meadow creation. His childhood farming experience is helpful because he is planning large plot creation across a hydrological and fertility gradient; all will require farm equipment to create. Of course, herbivory may be an important factor as well.

Dave has participated in Quebec workshops and traveled to Poland and Germany in 2006 to participate in the world peat congress. His primary industrial partners are SunGro Horticulture Inc. and Premier Peat

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Click here to see what Derek has been up to in Botswana

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Click here to see Kerri's Dynamic Landscape Measurement in Mine Site Reclaimation poster

Recent Publications and Links:

Lee and I are currently working with other professors at the Universities of Saskatchewan, Windsor and Waterloo, studying the carbon flow and remediation of wetlands affect by Oil Sands process materials and water. The research group's acronym is CFRAW (see image for what it stands for)

My Ph. D. work centered around waterfowl and aquatic invertebrates (see publications), but my recent work (post-doc) has allowed me to experience the great opportunities for research the oil-sands has to offer.

Also, I am the webmaster for this site - so any complaints/compliments/carrot cake should be directed towards me.