June 27, 2022
CSFS Associate Dr. Leonard Foster (Michael Smith Lab; Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) said he suspects that weather patterns will play an increasingly significant role in honey bee colony loss.
June 27, 2022
Congratulations to all our friends at the xʷc̓ic̓əsəm Garden! The xʷc̓ic̓əsəm Garden (Indigenous Health Research and Education Garden), located at the UBC Farm, has been recognized as one of the 100 Garden Moments of Canada – a list that will serve as the basis of Canada’s Garden Hall of Fame.
Dr. Matthew Mitchell and Laura Super at the UBC Farm (UBC IT Communications)
June 23, 2022
The CSFS’s Associate Dr. Matthew Mitchell and Faculty of Forestry PhD Candidate Laura Super discuss how they use UBC Advanced Research Computing (ARC) to answer questions about biodiversity conservation, landscape ecology, and the impacts of climate change.
ARC is being used for the Biodiversity Monitoring project at the UBC Farm, which helps us understand how biodiversity at the Farm is changing over time and how this affects important ecosystem services that aid people, help crops grow, and contribute to overall ecosystem sustainability.
Dr. Leonard Foster
June 6, 2022
CSFS Associate Dr. Leonard Foster (Michael Smith Lab; department of biochemistry and molecular biology) commented on how Canada has seen historical losses of bees due to the deformed wing virus.
Students from UBC Sauder School of Business and UBC Faculty of Applied Science have teamed up on a project that uses AI to help prevent heat damage in fruit crops. When surface temperatures of fruit monitored by the AI reach a certain threshold, it initiates a cooling system.
You can see their pilot study set up at the UBC Farm this summer!
Drs. Juli Carrillo and Quentin Geissman inspect a Sticky Pi trap.
A new “sticky” Campus as a Living Laboratory project will enable CSFS researchers Drs. Juli Carrillo and Quentin Geissmann to monitor insects in real-time, on a scale never done before.
“This project promises to help us understand insect biodiversity, which we know is both crucial to ecosystems, and affected by human activities,” says Juli Carrillo, CSFS Associate and Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems, and lead researcher of the Digital Detection Web for On-Campus Insects project.
“The more we can do to support bee health of all kinds — not just honeybees — the better off our environment is going to be,” says Dr. Leonard Foster CSFS Associate and Professor, Michael Smith Lab and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular biology)
Dr. Foster was interviewed about a program that aims to increase honeybee populations in Vancouver with rooftop hives and locally reared queens.
Dr. Leonard Foster
Dr. Sean Smukler, CSFS Associate and Professor in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, commented on the impact of longer than usual cold weather in B.C. on crop harvesting.
Congratulations to CSFS Associate Maja Krzic on being named Fellow of the Canadian Society of Soil Science (CSSS)! This award is presented to members of the CSSS with a distinguished record of accomplishment in soil science and service to the CSSS society.
Photo by AP Photo/David J. Phillip
CSFS Associate and chair of agriculture and environment in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems Dr. Sean Smukler and NSERC industrial research chair in animal welfare Dr. Dan Weary were interviewed about about adapting animal agriculture to climate change. It is going to be a “negotiation between society and producers, deciding whether or not we’re willing to pay the price to protect them,” says Dr. Smukler. “We need to pay more for our food if we want something that’s sustainable.”