discoveries

The sun has risen on a new school focused on all aspects of the Faculty’s efforts in forestry. The Alberta School of Forest Science and Management makes provision for membership of anyone who has an interest in forest-related research and educa-tion from the University of Alberta and partner organizations. The School, which integrates ecological, economic and social aspects of for-estry research and education, has two main purposes, explains founding director Dr. John Spence. “It’ll provide a banner under which academics, governments, industry, envi-ronmentalists and businesses can come together and discuss forest issues from a variety of perspectives,” he says. Indeed, the School will provide a single-point U of A focus for forestry interests and issues and a forum for discussion of ‘big-picture’ issues confronting the sector. “We aim to develop new communication tools and activities to catalyze interactions and breakdown the traditional silos that discourage a broader, more holistic view of forest management,” says Spence. The new School also seeks to help reverse decreasing enrolment in the Faculty’s BSc (Forestry) program. Over the last decade, forestry programs around the world have experienced a drop in enrolment, up to 40% in some programs. “The School will hopefully increase the visibility and improve the public view of forestry,” explains Spence.

First rural centre Director appointed Dr. Lars Hallström has been named the first director of the Alberta Centre for Sustainable Rural Communities. Hallström served as an associate professor of political science at St. Francis Xavier University and held a Canada Research Chair in Public Policy and Governance. He took a leadership role in establishing the National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health, which looks at the social and economic factors that influence the health of Canadians In his new position, Hallström will oversee the centre’s efforts to advance the U of A’s varied rurally-focused research and to forge practical connections to rural communities. Although the centre is based at Augustana cam-pus, Hallström will also have an office and work out of the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences.

Brian Heidecker, chair of the U of A board of governors, Alberta Advanced Education and Training Minister Doug Horner and Dr. John Kennelly, Dean of the Faculty of ALES, were among the 150 people who celebrated the faculty’s name change at the Fairmount Hotel MacDonald last December.

Alberta School of Forest Science and Management Launched

Faculty celebrates new name

discoveries • fall 2009

Macdonald named new Associate Dean Dr. Ellen Macdonald, a plant ecologist in the Department of Re-newable Resources, has agreed to serve a three-year term as associ-ate dean (research) in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences. She takes over from Dr. Vic Adamowicz who completed his term and has returned to full-time duties as a professor. “I’m excited to help further build the incredible research capac-ity we have in ALES and to work towards transferring knowledge to address the most pressing issues faced by society and the planet today,” said Macdonald. She joined the faculty as an assistant professor in 1989, becom-ing a full professor by 1999. From 2001 to 2004, she served as associate dean in the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research after completing a term as associate chair (planning and priorities) in the Department of Renewable Resources between 1999 and 2001. Macdonald has won several awards during her career including, most notably, a Killam Annual Professorship in 2007/08 and the faculty’s Teacher of the Year Award in 2004, 2008 and 2009.

Dr. Ellen Macdonald

A pan-Canadian NSERC research network on animal embryos was launched last March. The NSERC EmbryoGENE Strategic Research Network’s goals are to better understand the impact that assisted reproductive technologies and various maternal features have on cattle and swine embryos. The research network – which has a $9 million budget for the first five years, of which $4.8 million comes from the Natural Sciences

and Engineering Research Council – has two research nodes, one centered on swine at the University of Alberta and the other focused on cattle at Université Laval in Quebec City. “We’ll be looking at the environment in which those embryos are created and are form-ing,” explains Dr. George Foxcroft, Co-Director of the Network and head of the swine research node at the University of Alberta. “That will help us develop baseline data to determine

normal embryos from which we’ll be able to develop diagnostic tools to determine an embryo’s health.” From there, researchers will examine environmental factors, most notably maternal nutrition and assisted reproductive technol-ogies that influence the develop-ment of embryos. Ultimately, the research will be able to determine the best nutrition and conditions to produce the best eggs which will produce the best embryos and the most efficient livestock.

Dr. George Foxcroft

Research network on animal embryos launched

Purpose makes work lighter Urging employees to rethink their jobs and remember what they love about them had a significant impact on workplace morale. An intervention program, designed to engage employees and give them a sense of purpose, resulted in a 60 per cent drop in ab-senteeism and a 75 per cent drop in turnover, two University of Alberta researchers found. Dr. Berna Skrypnek and PhD graduate Val Kinjerski conducted a study that focused on two groups of long-term health-care workers from two different care facilities in Canada. One group of 24 employees attended a one-day workshop, followed by eight weekly booster sessions offered at shift changes. The workers were led through a variety of exercises asking to consider concepts like the deeper purpose of their work, being of service, ap-preciation of themselves and others, sense of community and self-care. The second group of 34 workers was of-fered no support program. The result for the intervention group was a 23 per cent increase in teamwork, a 10 per cent hike in job satisfaction and a 17 per cent jump in workplace morale. Furthermore, employer costs related to absenteeism were almost $12,000 less for the five months following the workshop than for the same period in the previous year. The results were published recently in the Journal of Gerontological Nursing.

discoveries • fall 2009

While capitalism and sustainability are not the most complementary sets of ideals, a re-cent experiment in reverse auctions conducted by University of Alberta agricultural economist Dr. Peter Boxall has married the two concepts which may soon be used to allocate NGO and government funding to farmers across the country. Boxall and student research-ers conducted an experimental reverse auction at the Deerwood Soil & Water Management As-sociation’s annual meeting in March. While the current system of allocating government funds to farmers is a cost-share model where funds cover only a percentage of actual costs, reverse auctions allows farmers to act as sellers by placing bids for funds. The winning

bids are then judged for their maximum poten-tial environmental impact. “What happens if we take the same money used in current cost share policies, and we auc-

tion it off?” prompts Boxall. “It’s a method to induce competition for government funding.” While there is still concern for the equitable allocation of funds, auctions like this one seem to be the way of the future. Ducks Unlimited Canada is just one organization of many to already use this system. They used it for a wetland restoration project last November.

Governments on both sides of the border may soon adopt reverse auctions as a cost-effective solution to growing environmental concerns.

Reverse auctions for farmers coming soon

It’s egg-ronic. A food long thought best to be avoided for heart health may actually help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. University of Alberta egg scientist Dr. Jianping Wu and graduate student Kaustav Majumder found that fried and hard-boiled eggs could actually lower high blood pressure. In a laboratory simulation, the pair found that the eggs’ proteins were converted by enzymes in the stomach and small intestine to produce peptides that act the same way as ACE inhibitors, prescription drugs that are used to lower high blood pressure. Wu stated there is a strong public perception eggs should be avoided be-cause of their high cholesterol content. But he added some of the information used to come to that conclusion is more than 30 years old. “We felt it was time to revisit that, to better understand the link between eggs and health,” he said. He added the study did not take into account the effects of the fat and oil of fried eggs. The next step for Wu is to conduct animal and human testing for which he is currently seeking funding. The study was published in the Jour-nal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Eggs may help lower high blood pressure

Dr. Peter Boxall

Dr. Jianping Wu Long-term monitoring is needed to determine the cumulative impact of seismic exploration on tundra in the Macken-zie Delta region, says University of Alberta plant ecologist Dr. Ellen Macdonald. Along with graduate student Todd Kemper, she studied both 20 and 30 year-old and more recent seismic lines in the Kendall Island Bird Sanctuary region between 2002 and 2004. The researchers found that vegetation on the older seismic lines was noticeably different than in adjacent reference areas. In particular, seismic lines had greater cover of shrubs and grass-like plants. Furthermore, despite new seismic explora-tion methods designed to reduce impact, Macdonald and Kemper found that short term effects of recent seismic exploration on vegeta-tion are still substantial. “We can conclude that on balance, the

change in methods seem to be a moot point or, in some cases, the effects may be greater,” said Kemper adding that they can’t predict what the area will look like in 10, 20 or 30 years. The bird sanctuary is a migratory-nesting ground for some 60,000 birds, situated above two large natural gas deposits which contain about two-thirds of the gas intended to fill the proposed MacKenzie Valley Pipeline. The researchers state that while the impact of one seismic line is not monumental, the accumulation of all the lines could pose a problem.

Arctic vegetation affected by seismic exploration

discoveries • fall 2009

For more information or additional copies or to comment:

Research@ales.ualberta.ca

780-492-8126www.ales.ualberta.ca

Right time to define health as a capital resource? Despite the fact there are positive and negative implications of defining health as a resource, the timing might be right to promote health as a type of capital resource to the greater public, argues Dr. Deanna Williamson of the Department of Human Ecology. In an article published last March in Critical Public Health, Williamson and her colleague Jeff Carr state that while practioners, policymakers and scholars commonly define health as a resource, little attention has been paid to what that definition implies. The authors argue that consistent and active promotion of health as a resource could foster greater individual investments in health, facilitate the development of inter-sectoral collaborations and increase the proportion of upstream investments that maintain and improve health. However, they raise some caution about an economic definition of health. Noting that such a definition could lead some to view health from a strictly utilitarian perspective, the authors argue that such a definition could lead to the de-politicization of health-related decision-making, and emphasize the individualiza-tion of health-related investments while simultaneously contributing to the development of programs and policies that would de-emphasize the role of societal institutions. While they concede the negative consequences aren’t inevitable, they argue forcefully that failure to recognize and consider them increases the likelihood that they will, in fact, occur. Dr. Deanna Williamson

Determining the right pH level to grow trees in reclaimed oil sands sites Preliminary results in one of Janusz Zwiazek’s current research projects suggest that some species of boreal plants show a stronger prefer-ence for low soil pH levels than was previously thought. This could be problematic in reclaimed oil sands areas because in some of those areas, soils tend to have higher levels of pH. “The pH level in the boreal forest could be lower than five,” says Zwiazek. “In reclaimed areas in the oil sands, pH levels can reach as high as 8.5.” Zwiazek says there is little information concerning the soil pH tolerance of understory plants in the boreal forest. “There’s anecdotal evidence that says they like low pH but we don’t know the tolerance limits and what makes some boreal plants more pH-tolerant than others,” he says. To determine the pH tolerance levels of boreal plants, Zwiazek is testing 15 different species in soils ranging in pH levels from five to nine. The preliminary testing for the five-year project was done in hydroponics to eliminate other vari-ables. In the next stage, Zwiazek will choose three species and test them in sand culture to validate the results. Afterwards, the final step will include testing in soil in a laboratory environment.

Containing CWD could avoid economic loss Containing the current occurrence and avoiding a large spread of chronic wasting dis-ease (CWD) in Alberta could avoid an economic loss to the province of $500,000. “That’s about $10 a trip for a hunter. That’s not a huge number in a way but it’s a substan-tive enough number when you look at the number of trips,” says Dr. Vic Adamowicz of the Dept. of Rural Economy, who co-supervised with Dr. Peter Boxall the research conducted by masters student Natalie Zimmer. They used a common travel-cost model to ascertain if resident hunters are moving to dif-ferent sites to avoid CWD and then quantifying that trade-off. The researchers discovered that hunters are very well informed about CWD and that so far, they haven’t altered their hunting behaviour very much at all. However, the researchers also noticed there would be some decline in the number of trips hunters would take if CWD spreads and the prevalence increased. Chronic wasting disease was first confirmed in Alberta’s wild deer populations in 2005. As of January 2009, 62 wild deer have been identi-fied in the province with CWD. Further research on CWD is looking at the potential losses of revenues from hunting activities rural communities could experienc-ing. Future research on the economic impact of CWD on non-resident hunters is also being considered.