2026 Fellows
Abbey Lewis
My research investigates habitat use by subarctic shorebirds on their breeding grounds in the Hudson Bay Lowlands (HBL). Hudsonian Godwit (Limosa haemastica) and Hudsonian Whimbrel (Numenius hudsonicus) are species of concern that have seen dramatic population declines over recent decades. However, we know little about their breeding ecology in Ontario. As the HBL are on track to experience the earliest and most severe impacts of climate change in the province, there’s also interest in understanding how changes in habitat suitability will affect shorebird population dynamics. To address these questions, I’m using remote sensing imagery to generate habitat maps of nest sites and deploying GPS transmitters on adult birds to track movement patterns on their breeding grounds in Polar Bear Provincial Park. This work will inform conservation planning in the HBL by describing the most important habitat features used by shorebirds during the breeding season and predicting how they may be affected by future changes to their landscape.
Joseph Silva
Fire regimes in the boreal region of western Canada are changing. Wildfires are becoming more frequent and severe and can have significant impacts on forest ecosystems and local Indigenous communities. I'm a PhD candidate at the University of Lethbridge, and I'm studying how fire regimes in northern Saskatchewan are changing, how this affects forest resilience, and ways land managers can mitigate negative effects. As part of this research, I'm working with English River First Nation and the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency to develop the English River First Nation Fire Resilience Project. Through a series of workshops in Patuanak, Saskatchewan, participants will work to co-develop wildfire mitigation strategies around the community. These strategies which will be tested in fire simulation models to assess their potential to reduce community wildfire risk. Information from this project can be used by English River First Nation to support decision-making and planning efforts to maintain community and ecosystem health in a future with more wildfire.
Simon Coats
Climate change is causing shrubs to grow at increasingly higher elevations within the Northern Boreal Mountains (NBM) of the Yukon. This ‘shrubification’ presents a critical challenge to mbäy (Dall sheep; Ovis dalli dalli), as tall shrubs are replacing areas of preferred mbäy forage and disrupting the clear sightlines that mbäy rely upon to detect predators.
Mbäy populations in the Yukon have experienced alarming sub-population declines of up to 63% since 2011. Shrubification has been raised as a potential factor in these declines, but precisely how vegetation change influences sheep habitat quality, behaviour, and population persistence remains unclear.
In response to these declines, prescribed burning has been proposed as an intervention to improve forage conditions and reduce shrub presence. Fire, however, is a historically rare disturbance within sheep range, and its impacts on northern alpine vegetation communities and sheep are uncertain.
Working alongside Kluane First Nation, Champagne and Aishihik First Nations, Yukon Government, and Parks Canada, my research is quantifying shrubification in the NBM, assessing how mbäy habitat use differs between open and shrubby areas, and determining the potential for prescribed burning to enhance mbäy habitat.
Megan Edgar
This project integrates multi-source waterbird monitoring data to build robust abundance and distribution models across Canada's boreal region. A fundamental challenge in large-scale avian monitoring is that detection probability varies substantially across survey methods — what an observer, an autonomous recording unit (ARU), or a trail camera detects at a given location reflects both true species presence and method-specific biases. I will first quantify these detection differences across platforms and species, calibrating each method to generate standardized density estimates with the goal of comparing and combining across programs including WBPHS, PRISM, and passive acoustic monitoring archives. Using these integrated, detection-corrected models, I will address three ecological questions: whether waterbird distributions are shifting at the boreal-prairie ecotone in response to climate-driven hydrological change; how increasing wildfire frequency and post-fire wetland succession influence species distributions across the boreal forest; and whether waterbird occurrence and density respond predictably enough to wetland condition to serve as scalable indicators of ecosystem health.
Sarah Naughtin
Canada's boreal forest faces unprecedented climate-driven transformation, yet critical gaps remain in our understanding of understory vegetation, hindering conservation planning across the north. My research addresses a fundamental question: is temperature or moisture the primary driver of boreal understory shrub distributions across the Yukon? Climate projections show consistent warming but divergent precipitation trajectories, where some models predict drying while others forecast wetter conditions, making this distinction essential for conservation planning. Hot, dry futures may trigger forest dieback and constrain wildlife habitat, while warm and wet conditions could facilitate rapid vegetation shifts, and the management response to each scenario looks very different. To answer this, I integrate field observations from 45 Yukon sites with circumboreal occurrence records for 19 shrub species, combining local data with broader biogeographic context to build robust species distribution models using multiple algorithms and contrasting climate scenarios. My results will quantify the relative importance of temperature and moisture, identify climate refugia, and develop spatially explicit monitoring priorities for the Northern Boreal Mountains, directly informing conservation planning for caribou and moose habitat, permafrost stability, carbon storage, and subsistence resources.
Sarah Blincoe
In between boreal and tundra ecosystems, James Bay plays a critical role in hosting northern biodiversity, including the southernmost polar bear population. Polar bears depend on sea ice for feeding, foraging and mating; however, climate-induced changes in sea-ice are forcing bears ashore. Prolonged terrestrial use increases overlap between polar bears and Cree communities who access coastal areas for seasonal hunting and trapping. In the past decade, communities in northern Ontario and Quebec on both coasts of James Bay have reported increasing polar bear encounters and identified human-polar bear interactions as a growing safety concern. In 2020, a community-led non-invasive polar bear monitoring project was established on the Eastern coast of James Bay in the Eeyou Marine Region (EMR), to address this priority. Our questions explore polar bear habitat use over space and time in the boreal ecosystem and how this overlaps with human land use using trail cameras, existing geospatial datasets, satellite imagery and Cree Knowledge interviews. We will weave data collected using Western science sampling methods with Cree Knowledge in support of mapping and mitigating human-bear conflict.This collaborative process strengthens trust, supports community ownership of knowledge, and ensures findings are meaningful and appropriate for local use.
Stephanie Saal
In the Yukon, snow is both the primary source of annual runoff and the region’s greatest hydrological unknown. Snowmelt sustains cold water refugia vital to aquatic species and northern ecosystems, a priority emphasized by Kwanlin Dün First Nation (KDFN). Yet field observations remain sparse, and existing remote sensing products perform poorly in mountainous terrain. The 2025 launch of the NASA–ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission will introduce a promising new data source for quantifying Yukon snowpack, particularly suited to mountainous landscapes and dry snow conditions.
This research will develop methods to estimate snow water equivalent (SWE) from NISAR using differential InSAR in subarctic mountain environments. Because accurate algorithms require local calibration and validation, field sampling of snowpack properties is essential. The project was co developed with KDFN, who are advancing land use planning in the Fish Lake Planning Area and establishing a freshwater monitoring program. In response to KDFN’s interest in snow–ecosystem interactions, stream temperatures will be monitored alongside snow measurements. Integrating these datasets will support evaluation of snowmelt influences on stream temperature buffering and aquatic ecosystem health. The work will also generate information on snow depth relevant to ungulate movement and habitat connectivity, supporting conservation planning across the region.
Gillian Chow-Fraser
Wood bison are the largest land animal in North America and are important to the cultural identity of many Indigenous communities. Despite their ecological and cultural significance, wood bison occupy a fraction of their historical range and persist at less than a tenth of their historical numbers. The majority of the remaining free-roaming wood bison are found in isolated herds in northern Canada, with most of these herds reintroduced. Effective management of reintroduced and/or recovering wood bison herds depends on understanding of the social-ecological system in which they exist today, how that system existed in the past, and how it will change in the future. My project will explore both the ecological and cultural factors that influence Indigenous stewardship of herds through a collaborative initiative with Indigenous communities and collaborators throughout their historical range in northern Canada. The goal will be to increase understanding on: 1) where it is ecologically and culturally appropriate to reintroduce and manage wood bison and 2) areas that will continue to be suitable for wood bison under a changing climate. Using interdisciplinary approaches, the project will co-create knowledge and support culturally-informed conservation science to support a species at risk.
Samantha Delisle
Within the Eeyou Maring Region (EMR) of James Bay, Northern Quebec, sits hundreds of islands where a variety of wildlife species exists. Unfortunately, information on these wildlife species and their distributions on the islands is sparse and poorly documented in the EMR. To bridge this knowledge gap, our project is partnering with local Cree communities to co-develop locally relevant and meaningful biodiversity monitoring tools. Our project answers research priorities of the coastal Cree communities of Waskaganish, Eastmain, Wemindji and Chisasibi, particularly by looking at the distribution of culturally important species and new/invasive species in the area. It closely connects and collaborates with various local and regional organizations, and with two on-going community-led research projects, the Polar Bear Ecology Project and the Coastal Habitat Comprehensive Research Project. Our project combines wildlife species detections from camera traps and sound recorders with Cree Traditional Knowledge from participatory mapping exercises to spatiotemporally inventory species presence and map species distribution. Our project will co-create a wildlife biodiversity knowledge baseline and help better inform local and regional decision making in terms of conservation, climate change adaptation, and land use planning.
Emma Wegener
The Hudson Bay Lowlands (HBL) are one of the largest, most carbon-dense peatland ecosystems globally. However, we are ill-prepared to assess the vulnerability of HBL carbon stocks to land-use and climate change. My research aims to quantify the effects of land-use and climate change to peat soil samples of the HBL. Over the summer months of 2024 and 2025, I led two field campaigns in the HBL, extracting intact peat cores and analyzing the carbon density and quality, nitrogen availability, and heavy metal concentrations. Following the completion of these analyses, samples will be incubated under different temperature and moisture scenarios to simulate the effects of land-use and climate change. Over three months, I’ll measure CO2, CH4, and N2O emissions to track decomposition rates. After this I will subject samples to burning in similar conditions to wildfire, and reanalyse carbon density and quality, nitrogen availability, and heavy metal concentrations, to determine the cumulative impact of climate change, land-use change, and wildfire. This research is critical, as the HBL peatlands face increasing pressure from climate change and resource extraction. It will inform mining policy, guide reclamation efforts, and provide baseline data necessary for the protection and understanding of these critical ecosystems.
Marilou Roy
In the context of rapid climate change, boreal ecosystems are undergoing shifts that affect both food resources and species interactions. Berries, such as blueberries and crowberries, are a key component of these ecosystems, supporting herbivores, small mammals, and their predators. However, their role in shaping trophic dynamics remains understudied.
This project aims to investigate how variation in berry availability influences the behaviour, body condition, and population dynamics of herbivorous mammals (e.g., voles, snowshoe hares, red squirrels), and how these effects cascade to predators such as Canada lynx and American marten. I hypothesize that reduced berry abundance negatively impacts herbivores, leading to bottom-up effects on predator populations.
Using data from the Kluane Ecological Monitoring Project, this research will combine field surveys of berry abundance, wildlife monitoring, and camera-based observations of predator–prey interactions. It will also integrate Indigenous knowledge on long-term changes in berry distribution.
This project will improve our understanding of how plant resources shape wildlife dynamics and help inform conservation strategies in a changing climate.
Claire Ethier
Climate change is leading to widespread vegetation change across high latitudes. Extensive changes are transforming caribou habitat, including increases in shrub height and cover. Shrubs are an important summer forage for caribou. However, as shrubs mature they accumulate anti-herbivore compounds, reducing their nutritional quality. At the same time, shrubs growing tall and at high densities increase the energetic cost of movement and reduce line-of-sight critical for predator detection. The Fortymile caribou herd is a large, migratory herd whose range spans central Yukon and Alaska. Over the last century, the Fortymile caribou herd has experienced dramatic population fluctuations and associated range contractions. The herd’s most recent population peak in 2017 was short-lived and entered a decline before reoccupying the full extent of their historic range. In this context, a conservation concern is that increasing shrub cover and abundance is creating movement impediments, leading to loss in range use. My project pairs repeat drone surveys (2018 and 2026) and remote sensing imagery with GPS caribou collar data to assess the influence of shrub cover on caribou movement decisions. Caribou response to shrub expansion could have cascading impacts on food web dynamics and local Indigenous and non-Indigenous livelihoods.
Rory MacNeil
My research examines how pollinator activity influences lingonberry fruit production across a climatic gradient in the Yukon. Using autonomous cameras deployed at established Community Ecological Monitoring Program (CEMP) berry monitoring sites, pollinator activity was quantified during the lingonberry flowering period and paired with plot-level climate data collected during the 2025 field season. These observations will be combined with long-term berry productivity records to assess how climate and pollinator visitation jointly shape fruit yields.
With field data collection complete, the Weston Family Boreal Research Fellowship will support data synthesis, analysis, and knowledge mobilization. Outputs will include an open-access scientific publication, plain-language summaries, and presentations shared directly with northern Indigenous communities.
By linking pollinator dynamics with existing berry monitoring efforts, this research provides insight into how plant–pollinator interactions respond to a warming climate. These findings are critical for understanding impacts on biodiversity, food webs, and culturally important berry resources, with broader implications for food security in northern ecosystems.
