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Does participation in working groups catalyze the academic impact of researchers?  A new NSERC-funded study by CIEE and UBC Sociology discovers that working group participation accelerates the H-index of researchers. However, female researchers benefit less than their male counterparts despite similar rates of participation. These results provide a strong rationale for funding synthesis centres, but suggest that synthesis centres must also enact equity, diversity and inclusiveness policies beyond simple participation requirements. Full report here.
Working group: Forecasting groundfish biodiversity change in the Newfoundland shelf. This CIEE working group discovered that the collapse of Northwest Atlantic Cod stocks was accompanied by a compositional shift in the entire groundfish community. Signs of ongoing recovery are now evident in the composition of the community, despite slow recovery rates of cod stocks. 2014 Organizers: Fred Guichard, Andrew Gonzalez, Patrick Thompson and Eric Pedersen (McGill)
Funded Working Groups for 2020:
Synthesizing fifty years of ecological change in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence

Nicolas Rolland - Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Guillaume Blanchet - Université de Sherbrooke

This working group has ten graduate student participants selected competitively, as well as two established researchers (above) who will lead the group. Co-organized by Bios2, an NSERC-CREATE program.
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RED-BIO
Dynamic resource  landscapes, eco-evolutionary feedbacks
​and the emergence of meta-food webs 

Eric Harvey – Université de Montréal
Isabelle Gounand – Institut d’écologie et des sciences de l’environnement de Paris

Co-organized by FRB-CESAB
​Sponsored in part by Consulate General of France in Vancouver
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FISHGLOB
Fish biodiversity under global change – a worldwide assessment from scientific trawl surveys

Maria Lourdes D Palomares – University of British Columbia
Bastien Merigot – Université de Montpellier

Co-organized by FRB-CESAB
Sponsored in part by Consulate General of France in Vancouver
GrassSyn - Biodiversity of Brazilian grasslands and savannas: patterns and drivers, ecosystem services, and strategies for conservation and restoration 

Madhur Anand – University of Guelph
Milena Rosenfield - University of Guelph

Project led by Gerhard Ernst Overbeck and co-funded by SinBiose, the Brazilian synthesis centre; CIEE funded the participants from Canadian universities (listed above).
Creating a unified approach to evaluate regime shift detection methods

Eric Pedersen - Concordia University
Jessica Burnett - United States Geological Survey (USGS), Denver
Gavin Simpson - Institute of Environmental Change and Society, University of Regina
Christie Bahlai - Kent State University
Vulnerabilities of Canadian wetlands in a Changing Climate

Courtney Robichaud – University of Waterloo
Scott Davidson – University of Waterloo
Rebecca Rooney - University of Waterloo
Maria Strack - University of Waterloo
Forecasting in the Anthropocene: Addressing uncertainty in complex-systems using theory, modelling and applied science

Korryn Bodner - University of Toronto
Carina Rauen Firkowski - University of Toronto
Marie-Josée Fortin - University of Toronto
Previously Funded Working Groups:
2008-2013

Title

Year
An interim scientific assessment of the present and projected effectiveness of the Canadian Species at Risk Act
The Future of Scientific Field Research Stations in Canada

Predicting Ecological Change:
Multi-Scale Analysis of Plankton Diversity and Dynamics
Thermal scaling and body size: the next frontier in climate change ecological theory
2008


2010


2011


2013

Organizers

Arne Mooers (SFU), Dan Doak (U of Wyoming) and David M. Green (McGill)

Albrecht Schulte-Hostedde (Laurentian Univ), Frank Phelan (Queen’s Univ), Mark Forbes (Carleton Univ), Art Weis (U of Toronto)
Jeremy Fox (U of Calgary), Andrew Gonzales (McGill U), Bill Nelson (Queen’s U)

Mary I. O’Connor (UBC), Hamish Greig (U. Canterbury), Benjamin Gilbert (U of Toronto)
2014

Title

The terra incognita of community ecology: understanding continental-scale variation of ecological networks 2014
Forecasting groundfish biodiversity change in the Newfoundland shelf
Canada’s phylogenetic diversity in a changing world

Organizers

Timothée Poisot (U de Montreal) and Dominique Gravel (Sherbrooke)

Fred Guichard, Andrew Gonzalez, Patrick Thompson and Eric Pedersen (McGill University)
Jana Vamosi (U. of Calgary), Jeremy Kerr (U. of Ottawa)
2015

Title

Understanding recent biodiversity change across spatial and temporal scales


Adaptation versus maladaptation in response to environmental change

Organizers

Mary I. O’Connor (UBC); Andrew Gonzalez (McGill U); Jon Chase (iDiv, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research, Germany); Mark Vellend (Sherbrooke U)
Andrew Hendry(McGill University); Rowan Barrett (McGill University); Alison Derry (Université du Québec à Montréal); Gregor Fussmann (McGill University)
2016

Title

Canadian protected areas in a changing climate:
A cross-ecosystem approach to designing effective networks of protected areas
Genomic data in ecology, evolution and conservation:
the impacts of missing data in genotyping-by-sequencing datasets
Diversity and structure of coastal eelgrass communities along environmental and human disturbance gradients
Testing the conservation value of phylogenetic diversity Understanding recent biodiversity change across spatial and temporal scales.

Organizers

Cassidy C. D’Aloia (U of Toronto), Ilona R. Naujokaitis-Lewis (Environment Canada, National Wildlife Research Centre, Carleton U)
Jean-Sébastien Moore, Anne-Laure Ferchaud, Laura Benestan, Louis Bernatchez (Université Laval) and Thierry Gosselin (Independent consultant)
Julia K. Baum and Josephine C. Iacarella (University of Victoria)
Arne Mooers (SFU) and Caroline Tucker (U of North California)
2017

Title

Determining marine hotspots in Arctic Canada using tracking data from multiple species
The evolution of microbial metabolic and genomic diversity at multiple scales
Functional response of understory plants to climate, soil and disturbance regimes across Canadian boreal forest ecosystems

Organizers

Mark Mallory (Acadia), Marie Auger-Méthé (Dalhousie) and David Yurkowski (Manitoba). 
Stilianos Louca, Dr. Laura Parfrey and Dr. Michael Doebeli from the University of British Columbia
Alison Munson (Laval), Bright Kumordzi (Laval) and Isabelle Aubin (Canadian Forest Service)
2018

Title

Data and theory synthesis to resolve the effects of evolution on the predictability of range expansion
Canadian aquatic ecosystems under threat: A meta-ecosystem approach to the protection of aquatic diversity and ecosystem services
Incorporating phenotypic variation of thermal tolerance to improve projections of climate responses in Canada

organizers

Jennifer Williams (UBC), Tom Miller (RiceU)

Éric Harvey (U of Toronto), Marie-Josée Fortin (U of Toronto)

Jennifer Sunday (McGill University)
2019

Title

Responses of freshwater zooplankton to road salt pollution: A global perspective

Forecasting boreal vegetation dynamics: Understory plants, state changes, and biome shifts 

How does life deal with uncertainty in fluctuating environments?

organizers

Shelley Arnott (Queen's), 
Bill Hintz (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

Steven Cumming  (Laval), Josie Hughes (Carleton), Stephen Mayor, (Ontario Forest Research Institute), Jennifer Baltzer (Wilfred Laurier)
Joey Bernhardt (UBC), Jennifer Sunday, (McGill), Mary O'Connor (UBC), Andrew Gonzalez (McGill)
Working Group Publications:


Williams, J. L., R. A. Hufbauer and T. E. X. Miller (2019). How evolution modifies the variability of range expansion. Trends in Ecology and Evolution.  34: 903-913. 
 
Bright B. Kumordzi et al. (2019). Geographic scale and disturbance influence intraspecific trait variability in leaves and roots of North American understorey plants.  Functional. Vol 33, Issue 9, Pages 1771-1784. 

Cantalapiedra JL, Aze T, Cadotte MW, Dalla Riva GV, Huang D, Mazel F, Pennell MW, Rios M, Mooers AØ.  (2019). Conserving evolutionary history does not result in greater diversity over geological time scales. Proc. R. Soc. B286: 20182896. 

Caroline M. Tucker, Tracy Aze, Marc W. Cadotte, Juan L. Cantalapiedra, Chelsea Chisholm, Sandra Díaz, Richard Grenyer, Danwei Huang, Florent Mazel, William D. Pearse, Matthew W. Pennell, Marten Winter and Arne O. Mooers. (2019).  Assessing the utility of conserving evolutionary history. Biological Reviews. doi: 10.1111/brv.12526.

Derry, A.M., Fraser, D.J., Brady, S.P, Astorg, L., Lawrence, E.R., Martin, G.K., Matte, J.-M., Negrín Dastis, J.O., Paccard, A., Barrett, R.D.H., Chapman, L.J., Lane, J.E., Ballas, C.G., Close, M., and E. Crispo. (2019) Conservation through the lens of (mal)adaptation: concepts and meta-analysis. Evolutionary Applications – Special Issue Perspective. doi: 10.1111/eva.12791.

Jonathan M Chase, Brian J McGill, Patrick L Thompson, Laura H Antão, Amanda E Bates, Shane A Blowes, Maria Dornelas, Andrew Gonzalez, Anne E Magurran, Sarah R Supp, Marten Winter, Anne D Bjorkman, Helge Bruelheide, Jarrett EK Byrnes, Juliano Sarmento Cabral, Robin Elahi, Catalina Gomez, Hector M Guzman, Forest Isbell, Isla H Myers‐Smith, Holly P Jones, Jes Hines, Mark Vellend, Conor Waldock, Mary O'Connor (2019). Species richness change across spatial scales. Oikos. doi: 10.1111/oik.05968.

D'Aloia CC, Naujokaitis-Lewis,  Blackford C, Chu C, Curtis JMR, Darling ES, Guichard F, Leroux S, Martensen AC, Rayfield B, Sunday J, Xuereb A, Fortin M-J. (2019). Coupled Networks of Permanent Protected Areas and Dynamic Conservation Areas for Biodiversity Conservation under Climate Change. Frontiers in Ecology & the Environment, 7:27.

Yurkowski, D. J., M. Auger-Méthé, M.L. Mallory, S.N.P. Wong, H.G. Gilchrist, A.E. Derocher, E. Richardson, N.J. Lunn, N.E. Hussey, M. Marcoux, R. Togunov, A.T. Fisk, L.A. Harwood, R. Dietz, A. Rosing-Asvid, E.W. Born, A. Mosbech, J. Fort, D. Grémillet, L. Loseto, P.R. Richard, J. Iacozza, F. Jean-Gagnon, T.M. Brown, K.H. Westdal, J. Orr, B. LeBlanc, K.J. Hedges, M.A. Treble, S.T. Kessel, P.J. Blanchfield, S. Davis, M. Maftei, N. Spencer, L. McFarlane-Tranquilla, W.A. Montevecchi, B. Bartzen, L. Dickson, C. Anderson and S. H. Ferguson.  (2019).   Abundance and species diversity hotspots of tracked marine predators across the North American Arctic. Diversity and Distributions, 25(3), 328-345.

J. M. M. Lewthwaite, A. L. Angert, S. W. Kembel, S. J. Goring, T. J. Davies, A. Ø. Mooers, F. A. H. Sperling, S. M. Vamosi, J. C. Vamosi and J. T. Kerr. (2018). Canadian butterfly climate debt is significant and correlated with range size. Ecography. 41: 2005–2015.                                        doi: 10.1111/ecog.03534
​
Mazel, F., Pennell, M., Cadotte, M., Diaz, S., Dalla Riva, G., Grenyer, R., Leprieur, F., Mooers, A., Mouillot, D., Tucker, C. and Pearse, W. (2018). Prioritizing phylogenetic diversity captures functional diversity unreliably.  Nature Communications, volume 9,  Article number: 2888.

Tucker, Caroline; Davies, T. Jonathan; Cadotte, Marc; Pearse, William (2018).  On the relationship between phylogenetic diversity and trait diversity. Ecology, 99(6), 1473-1479.

Stilianos Louca, Martin F. Polz, Florent Mazel, Michaeline B. N. Albright, Julie A. Huber, Mary I. O’Connor, Martin Ackermann, Aria S. Hahn, Diane S. Srivastava, Sean A. Crowe, Michael Doebeli  and Laura Wegener Parfrey. (2018).  Function and functional redundancy in microbial systems. Nature Ecology and Evolution, Nature Ecology and Evolution, 2, 936–943. 

Iacarella JC, Adamczyk E, Bowen D, Chalifour L, Eger A, Heath W, Helms S, Hessing-Lewis M, Hunt BPV, MacDuffee M, MacInnis A, O'Connor M, Robinson CLK, Yakimishyn J, Baum JK. (2018). Anthropogenic disturbance homogenizes seagrass fish communities. Global Change Biology, 24:1904–1918.

Meunier CL, Boersma M, El-Sabaawi R, Halvorson HM, Herstoff EM, Van de Waal DB, Vogt RJ and Litchman E. (2017). From Elements to Function: Toward Unifying Ecological Stoichiometry and Trait-Based Ecology. Front. Environ. Sci. 5:18. doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2017.00018

Lewthwaite, J. M., Debinski, D. M., & Kerr, J. T. (2017). High community turnover and dispersal limitation relative to rapid climate change. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 26(4), 459-471.

Mazel, F., Mooers, A.O., Dalla Riva, G.V. & Pennell, M.W. (2017).  Conserving phylogenetic diversity can be a poor strategy for conserving functional diversity. Systematic Biology,  66(6):1019-1027. doi: 10.1093/sysbio/syx054.

Pedersen EJ, Thompson PL, Ball RA, Fortin M-J, Gouhier TC, Link H, et al. (2017).  Signatures of the collapse and incipient recovery of an overexploited marine ecosystem. Royal Society Open Science, 4(7).

Poisot, T., Gravel, D., Leroux, S., Wood, S. A., Fortin, M.J., Baiser, B., Cirtwill, A.R., Araujo, M., and Stouffer, D. (2016). Synthetic datasets and community tools for the rapid testing of ecological hypotheses. Ecography, 39(4), 402-408.

Poisot, T., Baiser, B., Dunne, J. A., Kéfi, S., Massol, F., Mouquet, N., ... & Gravel, D. (2016). mangal–making ecological network analysis simple. Ecography, 39(4), 384-390.

DeLong, J. P., Gilbert, B., Shurin, J. B., Savage, V. M., Barton, B. T., Clements, C. F., ... & McCann, K. S. (2015). The body size dependence of trophic cascades. The American Naturalist, 185(3), 354-366.

Poisot, T., Stouffer, D. B., & Gravel, D. (2015). Beyond species: why ecological interaction networks vary through space and time. Oikos, 124(3), 243-251.

Gilbert, B., T. D. Tunney, K. S. McCann, J. P. DeLong, D. A. Vasseur, V. Savage, J. B. Shurin, A. I. Dell, B. T. Barton, C. D. G. Harley, H. M. Kharouba, P. Kratina, J. L. Blanchard, C. Clements, M. Winder, H. S. Greig and M. I. O’Connor. (2014). A bioenergetic framework for the temperature dependence of trophic interaction strength. Ecology Letters. 17: 902-914.

Vasseur, D., J. P. DeLong, B. Gilbert, H. S. Greig, C. D. G. Harley, K. S. McCann, V. Savage, T. D. Tunney, M. I. O’Connor. (2014). Increased temperature variation poses a greater risk to species than climate warming. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 281 (1779): 20132612.

Vasseur, D.A., Fox, J.W., Gonzalez, A., Adrian, R., Beisner, B.E., Helmus, M.R., Johnson, C., Kratina, P., Kremer, C., de Mazancourt, C. and Miller, E., (2014). Synchronous dynamics of zooplankton competitors prevail in temperate lake ecosystems. Proc. R. Soc. B, 281(1788), p.20140633.

CFRnet: a call for a network of Canadian Field Stations. White Paper. Carleton University.

MA Rudd, KF Beazley, SJ Cooke, E Fleishman, DE Lane, MB Mascia, R Roth, G Tabor, JA Bakker, T Bellefontaine, D Berteaux, B Cantin, KG Chaulk, K Cunningham, R Dobell, E Fast, N Ferrara, CS Findlay, LK Hallstrom, T Hammond, L  Hermanutz, JA Hutchings, KE Lindsay, TJ Marta, VM Nguyen, G Northey, K Prior, S Ramirez-Sanchez, J Rice, DJH Sleep, ND Szabo, G Trottier, J Toussaint, and J Veilleux. (2010). Generation of Priority Research Questions to Inform Conservation Policy and Management at a National Level. Conservation Biology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01625

Mooers, A.O., Doak, D.F., Findlay, C.S., Green, D.M., Grouios, C., Manne, L.L., Rashvand, A., Rudd, M.A. & J. Whitton. (2010). Science and policy and species at risk in Canada. BioScience 60:843-849.