Climate change on habitat

From her own backyard to the high Arctic, Dr. Erica Nol confesses that her studies on the effects of climate changes on plants and animals are "near and dear" to her heart. And, inevitably, the students who join her in her ventures find themselves looking at the world in a whole new light.

Backed by funding from various agencies such as the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (nserc), The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Canada's Science Horizons program, Nol is involved in a number of on-going projects.

For the past 14 years she has been studying the nesting and breeding habits of semipalmated plovers (shore birds) in Churchill, Manitoba, and annual grants from the Northern Scientific Training program allow her to hire Trent students to carry on the field work when she can't be there. Students assist her in this endeavour by locating and then banding the birds so she has a permanent record of those that survive.

Her most recently-launched project, which she set up last year during her sabbatical, is based in Georgia, the northern birds' winter nesting grounds. Undergraduate students will travel to Georgia this year to continue this study.

Because climate changes tend to show their effects first in the world's northern areas, Nol feels that studying how birds, plants and animals adapt and/or are affected by them is vital. As she explains, "It's very important to understand what we're doing to the world."

Research such as this will help determine whether the specific factors affecting breeding and survival are originating in their Arctic habitats or their sub-tropic wintering grounds.

Closer to home, Nol is conducting several studies on the effects of fragmenting forests on the birds that remain. Factors such as the reduction in food supply and the increase in predation and parasitism all influence their reproductive cycles and their survival, she notes, and to provide first-hand documentation of the effects she has hired several students this year to study the impact of a housing development located on one side of a local wood lot on the birds that breed there.

Logging is another man-made challenge for birds, and her project on the reproductive success of birds in various sections of Algonquin Park focuses on this issue.

In addition to her many hands-on projects and her teaching duties at Trent, Nol is regularly invited to report on her findings; she recently participated in the University of British Columbia's Conservation/Ecology lecture series.

The two weeks she spends in the Arctic each June is something she looks forward to every year. And being able to include students in her quest to unlock some of the mysteries there is a privilege, she says, that Trent's small size and unique structure makes possible.

"It's an invaluable experience - just a great opportunity."