Aquatic Food Web Ecology Lab, Dalhousie University

Research in the Aquatic Food Web Ecology Lab based at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, focuses on the consequences of biodiversity loss to the functioning and stability of aquatic food webs. All of our work is done in a food web context, which means that its not just the numbers of species that we are interested in, but also the structure of the food webs in which those species are embedded. Most of our work is done in aquatic microcosms, small container ecosystems in which we can assemble food webs and then subject them to various types of disturbance regimes . We also use mathematical models to run "in silico" experiments, otherwise known as computer simulations, to study problems that are too complex or just not possible to conduct in natural systems.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

What to do when you get invited to give a talk?



Take the lab on a road trip of course. Tamara, Connie, Veronik, Catherine, and Marina celebrating the end of a term in New Brunswick.

Kayla Hamelin at the USRA poster session

"The Tangled Web: Who eats whom in the Nova Scotia rock pools" - by far the coolest poster at the session:)

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Congrats Dr. Berreville

This week at the food web lab has been pretty exciting. Olivier Berreville defended his PHD thesis "Modelling the Structure and Seasonal Evolution of Planktonic Food Webs
in Arctic Polynyas" and passed with ease. Congrats Olivier - we all look forward to you joining the lab as our new Postdoctoral Associate!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

I am a cool scientist!


Check out my interview at "Dive Into Your Imagination"...
Thanks Annie!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

New Honors Students 2009/2010

The lab is busting at the seams! Karla Armsworthy, Jennifer Malcolm, Vanessa Brisson, Kristen Vandenburg and Cashelle Farley are doing their honors work in the food web lab this year.

New Graduate Students



Two new graduate students have joined the food web lab this year. Marina Ritchie did her undergraduate work at Dal as is going to be working on the human microbiome project. Catherine Sutherland comes to us from U of C and will be working on something webby. Welcome to both!

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution 2009 Meeting

Yours truly co-chaired the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution Meeting this year at Dalhousie (along with Dr. Sina Adl, and a heap of amazing volunteers, whom I would like to thank for all their amazing heroics). For details of this great meeting (which was also held in conjunction with the Genetics Society of Canada) check out the meeting report in Biology Letters.

Experimental Photography II

 

 

 

 
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Experimental Photography

 

 

 
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Monday, January 12, 2009

Upcoming Talks

February 21-24th, 2010, at Ecosystem Management applying to ecosystem adaptability science: I. Robustness and stability of organisms and ecosystems” in Sendai, Japan.
March 26, 2010. Saint Marys University, Halifax, NS (Host: Jeremy Lundholm)
April 6th, 2010 Guelph (Host: Kevin McCann)
Past Talks
December 4th, 2009, University of New Brunswick
February 16th, University of Potsdam, Berlin, Germany "Species Invasions in Complex Ecological Networks" Hosts: Dr. Neo Martinez and Dr. Ursula Gaedke
February 23rd, Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany "Species Invasions in Complex Ecological Networks" Host: Dr. Ulrich Brose
February 25th, University of Sheffield, England "Species Invasions in Complex Ecological Networks" Host: Dr. Owen Petchey
March 30th, PIMS Mathematical Biology Seminar Series, University of Alberta "Species Invasions in Complex Ecological Networks" Host: Dr. Mark Lewis

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Predicting invasion success in complex ecological networks


In a special issue on "Food Webs"
This paper was ranked the 33rd most read article in June 2009 in Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B
BY...

* Tamara N. Romanuk,
* Yun Zhou,
* Ulrich Brose,
* Eric L. Berlow,
* Richard J. Williams,
* and Neo D. Martinez

Predicting invasion success in complex ecological networks. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B June 27, 2009 364:1743-1754; doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0286