Large Scale Applied Research Project (LSARP) Competition Archives - Page 3 of 3

BeeCSI: ‘omic tools for assessing bee health (2018)

April 27, 2023 by

Overview

Honey bees are crucial to Canada’s agriculture and contribute up to $5.5 billion a year to our economy by pollinating valuable Canadian crops. However, the health of honey bees has been declining over the past decade, with Canadian beekeepers losing more than a quarter of their colonies each winter since 2006-07. The causes of bee declines are complex, variable over space and time, and often difficult to identify. This project aims to use genomic tools to develop BeeCSI – a new health assessment and diagnosis platform powered by stressor-specific markers. Working with beekeepers, industry technology-transfer teams, and diagnostic labs, in consultation with federal and provincial regulatory entities to ensure that the tools are implemented and accessible to the beekeeping industry by the end of the project.

TRIA-FoR: Transformative Risk Assessment and Forest Resilience Using Genomic Tools for the Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak (2020)

April 27, 2023 by

Overview

The current mountain pine beetle (MPB) epidemic has killed approximately 20 million hectares of mainly lodgepole pine forests in British Columbia and Alberta. Climate change and forest management practices have contributed to unprecedented range expansion of MPB. From its historic range in central British Columbia, MPB has spread through novel habitats in Alberta, establishing in a new host, the jack pine. Jack pine is a boreal forest species with a range that extends to the Atlantic Ocean, raising the spectre of continued eastward spread of MPB. Given the importance of lodgepole and jack pine to the forest industry, their central role in providing ecosystem services and their cultural importance, there is an urgent need to enhance resiliency of forests replacing MPB-killed stands, and to quantify eastward spread risk potential of MPB.

In TRIA-FoR, we will adopt a state-of-the-art multidisciplinary and integrative approach to develop genomics-informed knowledge, tools and application frameworks that mitigate risk for the present MPB epidemic and improve resiliency in future epidemics. Risk and resiliency will be investigated in the context of MPB-pine-climate interactions that affect MPB population dynamics, human dimensions in forest resource management, and impacts on diverse communities connected to forests at risk.

TRIA-FoR research encompasses three overarching goals. (1) Enhance lodgepole pine genetic resiliency to MPB. We will identify gene-based markers that predict MPB resiliency in lodgepole pine and identify traits that contribute to MPB resiliency. To understand how genetic resiliency translates into forest resiliency, we will model the impact of planting MPB-resilient lodgepole pine on outbreaking MPB populations. (2) Improve risk assessment efficacy for MPB northern and eastern spread into the boreal forest by examining MPB – pine host – climate interactions. We will test whether jack pine forests east of Alberta can support MPB populations, or whether expanding populations require immigration from the lodgepole x jack pine hybrid zone. In tandem, we will determine how overwintering temperatures and pine host characteristics in these marginal habitats affect MPB success. (3) Develop a social sciences framework of risk management planning and resilience building that can facilitate adoption of genomics-informed practices or technologies. We will investigate geographic, sociological, economic and policy aspects of risk related to the MPB epidemic, identifying factors that influence stakeholder willingness to adopt genomics-informed applications. This collaborative cross-scale research will enable a genomics-informed total risk and resilience management approach that can enhance forest health in the face of present and future MPB epidemics.

Optimizing a Microbial Platform to Break Down and Valorize Waste Plastic (2020)

April 27, 2023 by

Overview

In Canada, 29,000 tonnes of plastic leak into the environment and oceans every year, creating severe environmental problems. Waste plastic kills 100,000 marine mammals annually, including whales, dolphins, seals, and sea lions, either through ingestion of plastic debris or entanglement in fishing gear. Another 2.8 million tonnes of plastic are sent to Canadian landfills, which creates a latent problem for future generations. Only 9% of plastic is recycled.

Despite the waste and environmental impact, plastic production is increasing in Canada, with an additional 4.8 million tonnes produced per year. Demand for plastic continues to grow because it is cheap to produce and has many important benefits. However, with a growing awareness of the environmental impacts of plastic, governments and manufacturers are working towards a zero-plastic waste future. Under this paradigm, plastics will be made with recycled or biodegradable components. For this change in paradigm to succeed, government, the public, and industry will all need to play a role.
In this project a Canadian-led team consisting of multiple universities, municipal governments, and industries will drive a shift to a zero-plastic waste future by harnessing genomics technologies to create a circular economy for plastics. Our goal is to identify and engineer bacteria and enzymes that can break down plastics into recyclable components or into valuable fine chemicals more effectively than chemical conversion-based technologies. On a second front our team will conduct a holistic investigation into the impact of these new plastic biotechnologies on society, the economy, and the environment. Preliminary estimates indicate that if 90% of plastic is diverted to recycling instead of landfill, Canada could avoid $500 million per year in costs, and create 42,000 jobs in new industries. The market for recovered waste plastic in the textiles sector alone is up to $600 million per year. We could also save 1.8 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents per year in greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, stopping plastics from leaking into the environment would avoid up to $13 billion per year in damage to marine ecosystems. Ultimately, we envision a future where plastics continue to contribute to the economy in a positive way, but without the concomitant negative impact on the environment.

This project is affiliated with the Contaminants of Emerging Concern Research Excellence Network (CEC-REN) at Queen’s University, which is an interdisciplinary research and innovation initiative. CEC-REN is focused on the detection and treatment of emerging contaminants in the natural and built environment that pose environmental and human health risks.

BIOSCAN–Canada (2020)

April 27, 2023 by

Overview

The Global Risks Report 2020 from the World Economic Forum ranked biodiversity loss as one of the top five threats confronting humanity. Stemming this loss requires understanding how species interact and respond to changes in their environment, but this is impossible to accomplish with traditional morphological methods. DNA barcoding first emerged 15 years ago as a rapid, accurate way to discriminate species based on the sequence characterization of short segments of DNA. The International Barcode of Life Consortium, led by the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics at Guelph, involves research organizations in 40 nations which share the goal of cataloging all species and establishing a global biosurveillance system before mid-century.

Its current research program, BIOSCAN, is harnessing new technologies to make DNA barcoding faster and less expensive, advances that will broaden its application. Importantly, the technologies normally used to sequence whole genomes can be employed to gather DNA barcodes from thousands of specimens at a time. BIOSCAN–Canada is a core component of this global effort; its work will increase the cost effectiveness of DNA-based identification systems while also providing new biodiversity data with direct relevance to Canadians. For example, new species will be revealed from under-explored regions such as the Arctic and the ocean floor off British Columbia. DNA barcoding will also be used to illuminate interactions among species, such as which flowers a bee visited, and to track the shifting distributions of species in response to environmental change at previously impossible scales. Through community engagement, BIOSCAN–Canada will incorporate Indigenous ways of knowing into an accounting method for “natural capital” that extends beyond conventional economic metrics like the GDP.
By combining genomics-based biodiversity data with this accounting system, it will enable effective, timely environmental impact assessments and policymaking for the forestry, mining, and agricultural sectors as well as for conservation planning. Through such action, BIOSCAN–Canada will slow biodiversity loss, improve Indigenous relations through consultation, increase the sustainability of our agricultural and forestry sectors, and strengthen Canada’s leadership in global conservation efforts.

Increasing feed efficiency and reducing methane emissions through genomics: A new promising goal for the Canadian dairy industry (2014)

September 1, 2022 by

he Canadian dairy industry adds $16.2 billion to Canadian GDP each year (2011 figures). That figure is forecast to increase as international demand for dairy products grows in the coming years, due to growing middle classes in emerging economies, demand for high-quality milk proteins in developing countries and world population expansion more generally. That figure can also grow (by an estimated $100 million annually) by improving two key traits in dairy cattle: their ability to convert feed into increased milk production and a reduction in their methane emissions (methane being a powerful greenhouse gas). Dr. Filippo Miglior of the University of Guelph and Dr. Paul Stothard of the University of Alberta are leading a team that will use genomics-based approaches to select for cattle with the genetic traits needed for more efficient feed conversion and lower methane emissions. To date, it has been both difficult and expensive to collect the data required for such selection. The latest genomic approaches and the award-winning phenotyping platform developed by Growsafe in Alberta offer an opportunity to address these problems and collect and assess the required data to carry out the selection. The results of this project will assist dairy farmers and the industry more broadly to develop cattle that will carry these two important traits. Farmers will save money (as feed is the single largest expense in milk production), while the international competitiveness of Canada’s dairy industry will increase. The environmental footprint of the dairy industry will also be reduced, in part due to lower methane emissions, but also because more feed efficient animals produce less manure waste. Broad application of the project’s findings will be enhanced by the involvement of several industry organizations and international research partners in the project, not only benefiting Canada’s dairy industry, but also contributing to global food security and sustainability.

Towards a sustainable fishery for Nunavummiut (2014)

September 1, 2022 by

Affordable access to safe, nutritious and culturally relevant food is one of the biggest challenges facing the Nunavummiut, the people of Nunavut. Food costs are 140 per cent higher in Nunavut than in the rest of Canada with eight times more Inuit households facing moderate to severe food insecurity. This lack of affordable, nutritious foods is linked to growing health problems, including diabetes and childhood rickets. Accelerated melting of Arctic sea ice due to climate change is increasing access to arguably the last remaining under-exploited fishery in the Northern Hemisphere. This increased accessibility, primarily to Arctic char, but also to Arctic cod and Northern shrimp, coupled with a developed, sustainable, science-based fishing plan will offer opportunities for employment and economic benefits for Nunavut communities as well as greater food security. It is the Nunavummiut that should be the beneficiaries of these resources, rather than foreign fishing fleets. Understanding the genetic differences among these fish populations is key to developing that plan. Dr. Virginia K. Walker of Queen’s University and colleagues together with the Nunavut communities will integrate traditional and local knowledge with leading-edge genomic science and bioinformatics to gain an understanding of the genomes of these fish populations. This will allow monitoring of their migration, characteristics and adaptation and inform strategies to maintain genetically diverse and healthy stocks. The project will work toward strengthening Nunavut fisheries, augment sovereignty claims in the Canadian Arctic, increase employment and economic development opportunities, ensure access to a healthy food source, and improve food security for the people of Nunavut. The Walker Project website is www.arcticfishery.ca

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