The majority of the earth’s surface is covered by the oceans. With an astounding diversity of habitats, it is not surprising that the oceans are home to a broad range of species from the microscopic at the edge of what we consider alive, to the largest animals to have ever lived. Despite this breathtaking variety of life forms, life in the oceans is comparatively poorly explored. Many more hidden secrets of life await discovery. BC’s geographic location, as the only province on Canada’s Pacific coast, make it a perfect location to explore the biological marvels that the oceans hold. However, marine biological research at UBC is not limited to the local environments but covers topics on a global scale.
Several labs at UBC are exploring the diversity and evolution of the smallest organisms such as viruses, bacteria, and protists (Hallam, Suttle, Keeling, Leander, Wegener Parfrey) as well as how these influence global processes from cycling of nutrients to influencing the climate (Crowe,Hallam, Suttle, Maldonado, Tortell, Pakhomov). Moving up the food chain, the role of planktonic organisms in shuttling the energy to macroscopic fauna is explored (Pakhomov, Lewis, Hunt, O’Connor, Harley). Specifically, research into the interaction in different marine ecosystems and the role of their main players are prominently represented at UBC (Harley, Healey, Hinch, Hunt, Keeling, Leander, Lewis, Lindstrom, Martone, O’Connor, Pakhomov, Pauly, Richardson, Schulte, Taylor, Trites). Due to their specific importance to the Pacific Northwest region, the biology of fish, specifically salmonids, is researched by several groups (Brauner, Randall, Richards, Schulte, Shadwick, Wood, Healey, Hinch, Schulte, Taylor). Several groups focus on other species complexes and their conservation (Lee, Trites, Vincent).
Colin Brauner
Professor
Zoology
Website
Email
Brauner investigates environmental adaptations (mechanistic and evolutionary) to gas-exchange, acid-base balance and ion regulation in fish, by integrating responses from the molecular, cellular and organismal level. This information can be applied to issues of aquaculture, toxicology and water quality criteria development, as well as fisheries management.
William Cheung
Professor and Director; Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Ocean Sustainability and Global Change
Institute for Oceans and Fisheries
Website and Publications
Email
The Changing Ocean Research Unit studies the effects of global climate and ocean changes on marine ecosystems, biodiversity and fisheries social-ecological systems. Led by Dr. William Cheung, the Unit assesses the biophysical and socio-economic vulnerabilities and impacts of marine climate change, and identifies mitigation and adaptation options. Its vision is “Predicting the future ocean under climate change”. Mission is to improve understanding of the past, current and future responses of marine ecosystems and fisheries to global change; and explore and inform policy-relevant solutions at local and global scales to improve human well-being and the sustainable use of ocean biodiversity and ecosystem services. Its strategies are to integrate multidisciplinary datasets and information across scales and domains, and facilitate democratization of knowledge through innovative partnerships, capacity building and outreach initiatives; and to apply and develop scenarios and models to understand the dynamics of changing oceans and ecosystems.
Sean Crowe
Assistant Professor
Microbiology and Immunology; Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Website and Publications
Email
The overarching goal of Crowe’s research is to improve our capacity to predict and respond to global change by creating new knowledge of the earth system. To achieve this, quantitative information on microbial processes derived from insights into biological information carriers (e.g. DNA, RNA, protein) are integrated into past, present and future models of global biogeochemical cycles.
Steven Hallam
Associate Professor
Microbiology
Departmental Website and Laboratory Website
Email
The Hallam lab harnesses the power of environmental genomics to explore the microbial microcosms, describing microbial community structure and function across a wide range of ecosystems. Projects share a core set of interdisciplinary tools sourced from ecology, molecular biology, genetics and computer science. Microbial community members are viewed as constituents within the ecosystem providing nutritional, energetic or detoxification services.
Christopher Harley
Professor
Zoology
Departmental Website and Laboratory Website
Email
Harley’s lab researches coastal marine ecology and the impacts of climate change which include themes such as ocean acidification, thermal stress and global warming, climate change and salinity stress, the ecology of invasive species, and long-term ecological stress. Harley’s interests lie in how climatic factors, such as temperature, CO2, and pH, and biological relationships, such as predation and facilitation, interact to create ecological patterns in time and space.
Michael Healey
Professor Emeritus
Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Website
Email
Healey’s lab researches the ecology of Pacific salmon and they use these species to explore hypotheses about strategies for reproduction, energy allocation, and habitat choice. The variety of life history patterns displayed by Pacific salmon, and the fact that each species exists as many reproductively isolated populations, provides a rich opportunity to explore how related organisms solve ecological problems.
Scott Hinch
Professor
Forest and Conservation Sciences
Departmental Website and Laboratory Website
Email
The Hinch lab studies salmonid ecology, behaviour and physiology, and provides management systems with information needed for the conservation and sustainable use of fish resources. Research topics include physiology of migrations; social science and information exchange with stakeholders; environmental impacts on migrations; land-use impacts and restoration; effects of capture and release; stress, disease and pathogens; physiology and behaviour of offspring; and hydropower, fish passage and olfaction.
Brian Hunt
Assistant Professor
Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries
Website and Publications
Email
Hunt researches the structure and function of pelagic marine ecosystems and their response to climate forcing and anthropogenic impacts. Research focuses on the plankton that forms the base of all pelagic food webs, and extends into the higher trophic levels through research into bottom-up and top-down forcing processes. Unifying concepts of lower trophic level dynamics can inform our understanding of the food web response to perturbation.
Patrick Keeling
Professor
Botany
Departmental Website, Laboratory Website, and Publications
Email
The Keeling laboratory works is on the molecular evolution of protists (i.e. eukaryotes that are not animals, fungi, or plants), that comprise the clear majority of eukaryotic diversity. The main interests are to reconstruct ancient evolutionary relationships, to look at the diversity and ecology of heterotrophic eukaryotes, to examine how parasites evolve and infect their hosts, and how endosymbiosis affects both host and symbionts.
Brian Leander
Professor
Botany
Laboratory Website, and Publications
Email
Our research concentrates on the discovery and characterization of marine organismal diversity and comparative studies of novel morphological systems in predatory eukaryotes (i.e., marine zoology & protistology). We are fundamentally interested in the diversity and evolution of organisms, particularly traits associated with feeding, locomotion and symbiotic interactions. By addressing specific hypotheses about trait evolution using comparative molecular methods, we study the innovations and transformations associated with broad patterns of organismal diversity (e.g., convergent evolution over vast phylogenetic distances). This exploratory approach is motivated by the thrill of discovery, the beautiful and the bizarre, and the yearning to build a more comprehensive framework for understanding the interrelationships of life on Earth. The marine lineages we work on tend to be drop-dead gorgeous and reflect spectacular morphological diversity, such as meiofaunal animals, euglenozoans, dinoflagellates, cercozoans & marine gregarine apicomplexans.
Jae-Hyeok Lee
Assistant Professor
Botany
Website
Email
The Lee lab focuses on the molecular genetics of sexual development in green algae, focusing on gene regulatory networks and cell wall assembly. Further, the phylogenomics of developmental mechanisms for the evolution of land plants from their green algal ancestors and genetic engineering of algae for efficient carbon capture and biofuel production are researched.
Al Lewis
Professor Emeritus
Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Website
Email
Dr. Lewis is interested in understanding the interactions between oceans and plankton, especially how initial dispersal and survival, water properties, food conditions and predator numbers influence zooplankton. Lewis is especially interested in the functional morphology of copepods. These characteristics, when combined with distribution patterns, provide information on the dynamics of copepod populations and their role in food webs.
Sandra Lindstrom
Adjunct Professor
Botany
Website
Email
The north-east Pacific coast exhibits an extraordinarily diverse marine benthic seaweed flora. Molecular tools have allowed the Lindstrom lab to address questions of species limits and relationships and the biogeography of speciation in this environment. Novel findings allowed for certain species identifications, hypothesis on the existence of refugia within the glacial boundary, and to identify geographic boundaries’ role in speciation.
Maria Maldonado
Associate Professor
Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Website and Publications
Email
Research in the Maldonado lab is directed towards understanding trace metal acquisition, metabolism, and nutrition of marine bacteria and phytoplankton. Fundamental questions in microbial physiology, ecology, and evolution are addressed to better understand how trace metal distribution and speciation may control global primary productivity. Laboratory physiological and biochemical investigations are complemented with field research.
Patrick Martone
Associate Professor
Botany
Departmental Website, Laboratory Website, and Publications
Email
The intertidal zone of wave-swept rocky shores is one of the most physically stressful habitats on Earth. The Martone lab is interested in intertidal seaweeds, which must survive these conditions wherever they settle and grow. Specific foci of research are the selective pressures driving diversity, convergent evolution, evolution of lignified cell walls, biomaterials and cell wall mechanics, algal physiology and climate change, and costs and benefits of epiphytism.
Charles Menzies
Professor
Anthropology
Website and Publications
Email
Hagwil hayetsk (Charles Menzies), member of Gitxaała Nation, conducts research and teaching on the ethnography of Western Europe and Coastal British Columbia, natural resource-dependent communities and resource management policies, and the political economy of social struggle. His book, “People of the Saltwater: An Ethnography of Git lax m’oon” discusses an economy based on natural-resource extraction by examining fisheries and their central importance to the Gitxaalas’ cultural roots. He is also the Director of The Ethnographic Film Unit at UBC https://anthfilm.anth.ubc.ca/
Mary O’Connor
Associate Professor
Zoology
Departmental Website, Laboratory Website, and Publications
Email
The O’Connor lab studies how the abiotic environment influences marine ecological communities. In particular, they want to understand what drives variation in ecosystem structure and function to better understand the ecological impacts of climate change and habitat modification, and to explore how conservation efforts can be most effective given natural environmental changes.
Evgeny Pakhomov
Professor
Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Website and Publications
Email
The Pakhomov Lab has a broad range of interests covering topics from species ecology, at the level from zooplankton to fish, to ecosystem structure as well as physical-biological and biochemical coupling. Recently, Pakhomov has developed interests in stable isotope ecology, in particular in techniques that use compound specific measurements to reconstruct trophic pathways in pelagic ecosystems.
Daniel Pauly
Professor
Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries; Zoology
Website and Publications
Email
Dr. Pauly’s research interests include aquatic ecosystems, Ichthyology and Fisheries management. He is also devoted to studying, documenting and promoting policies to mitigate the impact of fisheries on the world’s marine ecosystems. Pauly is also co-founder of FishBase.org, the online encyclopedia of more than 30,000 fish species, and he has helped develop the widely-used Ecopath modeling software.
David Randall
Professor Emeritus
Zoology
Website and Publications
Email
Randall researches the regulation of ammonia production and excretion in fish, as well as the aquatic toxicity of ammonia and hypoxia. Further, the relationship of hemoglobin structure to oxygen and carbon dioxide transfer and tissue oxygen levels are explored as well as cellular responses of fish to hypoxia, including the role of hypoxia inducing factor and erythropoietin in response to hypoxia.
Jeffrey Richards
Professor
Zoology
Website
Email
The primary goal of the Richards lab’s research program is to understand the adaptive significance of the mechanisms coordinating cellular responses to stress. Specifically, they are interested in the physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms that act to balance energy supply and demand during short- and long-term exposure to environmental stress and the signal transduction pathways responsible for coordinating acclimation.
John Richardson
Professor
Forest and Conservation Sciences
Website and Publications
Email
The Richardson lab is interested in the ecological processes that limit populations and contribute to the assembly of communities, and how land use impacts those processes. They use experimental manipulations of small streams and riparian areas and have manipulated inputs, species composition, abiotic factors, physical structure, etc., to test how these processes contribute to biodiversity and ecosystem function.
Patricia Schulte
Professor
Zoology
Departmental Website, Laboratory Website, and Publications
Email
The Schulte lab is interested in studying the physiological adaptations that allow animals to live in particular environments. They take advantage of intraspecific variation in fish to study the evolution of the mechanisms that allow animals to respond to a changing environment. Specific research projects focus on thermal adaptation in killifish, conservation genomics of Atlantic salmon, and the evolution of exercise performance in three-spine stickleback
Robert Shadwick
Professor
Zoology
Website and Publications
Email
The Shadwick lab research program focuses on integrative biomechanics addressing the general question of how organisms deal with physical challenges at the level of systems and structures. They study the biomechanics of locomotor systems in fishes, as well as the biomechanical basis of swimming, feeding, breathing, and diving in whales.
Curtis Suttle
Professor
Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences; Botany
Website and Publications
Email
The Suttle lab explores the diversity, function, and impact of viruses and microorganisms on mortality, community structure and nutrient and energy cycling in aquatic systems. Methods range from isolation and characterization of novel isolates to metagenomic analysis of whole systems.
Eric Taylor
Professor
Zoology
Website and Publications
Email
The Taylor lab researches patterns of genetic variation within and between natural populations, the processes that promote and organize such variation, and their relevance to the origins and conservation of biodiversity. In particular, they are interested in population structure and the processes that influence population structure, speciation and hybridization, and the implications of these processes to conservation.
Philippe Tortell
Professor
Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences; Botany
Website
Email
The Tortell Lab has broad interests in marine biogeochemical cycles. Current work focuses on the biological, chemical and physical factors regulating oceanic primary productivity and the concentration of climate-active gases. His group has developed new measurement techniques based on sea-going mass spectrometry, optical measurements and tracer-based rate incubation experiments.
Andrew Trites
Professor
Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Departmental Website, Research Unit Website, and Publications
Email
Trites’ research is primarily focused on pinnipeds (Steller sea lions, northern fur seals, and harbor seals) and involves captive studies, field studies and simulation models that range from single species to whole ecosystems. The research program is designed to further the conservation and understanding of marine mammals, and resolve conflicts between people and marine mammals.
Amanda Vincent
Professor
Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries
Website and Publications
Email
The Vincent Lab mobilizes conservation action to improve the status of marine species and habitats. She is actively involved in biological and social research, empowering local communities, establishing marine protected areas, managing small-scale fisheries, restructuring international trade, promoting integrated policy, and advancing environmental understanding.
Laura Wegener Parfrey
Assistant Professor
Botany
Website and Publications
Email
The Parfrey lab studies communities of microbial eukaryotes with the goal of understanding their diversity and distribution across environments. They use high-throughput sequencing to characterize microbial communities within the phylogenetic framework of the eukaryotic tree of life. Currently, research focuses on eukaryotes in the human microbiome and microbial eukaryotic communities across environmental gradients.
Christopher Wood
Adjunct Professor
Zoology
Departmental Website and Laboratory Website
Email
While the primary focus of the Wood group is on physiology and aquatic toxicology, research examines the interactions of fish, crustaceans, and mollusks with their environment at all levels from the molecular to the biogeochemical to the ecological. They are particularly interested in the sub-lethal effects of natural factors and anthropogenic pollutants on organismal function, and the strategies by which animals adapt to extreme environments.