Charting pollutants

Treking through the Arctic tundra, monitoring the effects of acid rain on the borial and hardwood forests of Ontario and Quebec, charting pollutants in mining towns, setting up long-term ecosystem experiments in the 270-acre Oliver Ecological Centre just outside of Peterborough Dr. Tom Hutchinson's research covers a broad spectrum of the globe. And the implications of the experiments being done by his team of research scientists and students are just as far-reaching.

Setting up long-term (10 to 25 year) experiments, Hutchinson stresses, is "the only way to really keep tabs on what is happening in the environment." And now, with the recent opening of the Watershed Science Centre and its research field station, the Oliver Ecological Centre, he has been able to considerably expand and diversify both his aquatic and terrestrial experiments. This means more opportunities for research, more opportunities for students, and a chance to establish the Centre as a major national facility for long-term ecological and environmental studies.

Since the opening of the new Centre, Hutchinson has been able to study the effects of environmental pollutants on everything from forests, grasslands and wetlands to wildlife, all at the same convenient site just kilometers from the university campus.

What are the environmental effects of increased ultraviolet "b" light? How do climate changes affect plants and animals? How thoroughly does organic matter break down? How quickly and completely do damaged systems recover?

Final answers to these and the multitude of other environmental puzzles being addressed by Hutchinson's team of professors and students won't be known for many years. But in the meantime, the opportunities these experiments offer for students in a variety of different disciplines continue to grow, as do the prospects for the future.

"This is a gorgeous place for students to work," says Hutchinson.

Recent funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (nserc) for graduate students to work on the site has opened up the field even further, and cooperative ventures with other major Canadian centers is another plan on the horizon. All this adds up to big benefits for everyone - and they're bound to keep growing!