Research Team

Dr. Cahill's research focuses on experimental approaches to grassland community ecology, ecosystem function, and plant behavioral ecology, examining plant interactions with each other, their environment, and other taxa (e.g., soil microbes, herbivores).

Dr. Fitzsimmons's research focuses on leveraging genetic methodologies to enhance livestock production, emphasizing traits like Residual Feed Intake (RFI) and enteric methane, alongside processes such as epigenetics, fetal programming, and environmentally induced gene expression changes.

Dr. Iravani's research focuses on assessing and monitoring biodiversity and ecological services in agricultural and livestock production landscapes. With experience leading large-scale projects, he translates research into action to enhance grassland resilience in Canada and globally.

Dr. Fan's research focuses on consumer and producer behavior to inform agricultural policies and decision-making. Her interests include consumer preferences for emerging food issues, agri-food sustainability, value chain coordination, antibiotic use in livestock, and bioeconomic modeling.

Dr. Swallow's research focuses on climate change mitigation in agriculture and forestry, rural poverty, water management, market-based environmental instruments, land tenure, land use economics, and local food economies.

Dr. Jeffrey's research focuses on production and resource economics, agricultural business management, with interests in Canadian agricultural efficiency, agricultural risk management, environmental issues, and farm-level economics of ecosystem service production.

Dr. Bennett's research focuses on basic and applied ecology, particularly plant-soil interactions. His interests include invasive species management, plant-soil feedbacks, mycorrhizas, plant diversity, ecosystem functioning, and plant community assembly.

Dr. Carlyle's research focuses on grassland and rangeland ecology, particularly the effects of grazing management on soil carbon storage and the mechanisms controlling carbon cycling.

Dr. Bork's research focuses on rangeland ecology and management, examining weed control, agro-forestry, riparian grazing, plant responses to disturbance, forage utilization, livestock-wildlife integration, and rotational grazing to enhance rangeland ecosystem services.

Dr. Santos' research focuses on forage and grazing management, including forage legumes, crop-livestock systems, cover crops, nutrient cycling, grazing season extension, pasture rejuvenation, carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas emissions, and grasslands' ecosystem services.

Dr. Thilakarathna's research focuses on reducing synthetic nitrogen fertilizers by using biological resources. His work includes evaluating microbes for nitrogen fixation, biostimulants for nutrient efficiency, and mechanisms of nitrogen transfer between legumes and non-legumes.

Dr. Wagner's research focuses on non-native plant invasions, plant biodiversity, and functioning in rare habitats, as well as seed dispersal in grazed systems, including dry mixed-grass prairie. Her work includes field surveys, growth experiments, and data mining.

Dr. Haughland's research focuses on lichen ecology and biodiversity monitoring, with an emphasis on multi-taxa assessments. She integrates her expertise as an ecologist, taxonomist, and educator to advance understanding of ecosystem health and biodiversity.

Dr. Mahony's research focuses on the conservation and management of declining landbird populations. With an emphasis on grassland species, she supports development of Beneficial Management Practices and recovery of Species At Risk

Dr. MacKenzie's research focuses on agricultural soil health and the impacts of regenerative farming practices. He investigates how the use of compost and biochar can enhance carbon sequestration and mitigate GHG emissions.

Dr. Dyck's research focuses on long-term agroecological experiments. He studies soil fertility, mass and energy transport, and processes in managed and reconstructed ecosystems.

Dr. Chang's research focuses on forest soil processes, soil microbial ecology, and carbon sequestration. He studies GHG emissions, forest fertilization, tree nutrition, and silviculture-soil interactions, with applications in land reclamation.

Dr. Li's research focuses on bovine quantitative genetics and functional genomics. He investigates genes and genetic mechanisms regulating growth, feed efficiency, meat quality, and fertility traits in beef cattle and develops genomic tools for industry improvement.

Dr. da Silva's research focuses on sustainable nutritional and management strategies to improve cattle health and performance. She studies nutrition's impact on physiology, immunity, and behavior, as well as beef female nutrition and cost-effective forage strategies.

Dr. Guan's research focuses on bovine gut microbial ecology and its impact on feed efficiency, methane emission, and immunity using metagenomics and metatranscriptomics. She also investigates the bovine transcriptome, proteome, and microRNAs in economically significant traits.

Dr. Kröbel's research focuses on developing AAFC's whole farm model, Holos. His interests include ecosystem modeling in agriculture, climate change, GHG emissions, and nitrogen cycling.

Dr. Wishart's research focuses on metabolomics, proteomics, genomics, bioinformatics, and analytical chemistry. His interests include food chemistry, molecular biology, protein chemistry, structural biology, nanotechnology, and neuroscience.

Cnotribution: Benefit-Cost Analysis, and drivers and barriers to adopting grazing practices

Cnotribution: Development of critical infrastructure for rotational grazing and cattle management

Cnotribution: Development of critical infrastructure for rotational grazing and cattle management

Contribution: Grazing management impacts on soil microbiomes and microbial genomics

Contribution: Impacts of cattle grazing systems on insect and vegetation communities

Contribution:Grazing impacts on plant-plant and plant-microbe interactions and behaviour in grassland communities

Contribution: Grazing management impacts on forage chemistry using a spectral data library for NIRS quality estimates.

Contributions: Grassland soil microbiome, its role in plant-soil feedbacks, and its impact on GHG emissions.

Contribution: Integrating genomic and grazing strategies to reduce methane emissions in beef cattle

Contribution: Understanding how grazing systems affect cattle fecal microbiomes and enteric methane/carbon emissions

Contribution: Impacts of grazing systems on grassland vegetation and soil GHG flux

Contributions: Rumen microbiome and their role in feed efficiency of cattle and GHG emissions.

Contribution: Grazing management effects on soil organic carbon pools, focusing on necromass

Contribution: Quantifying GHG emissions in grasslands under various grazing management practices

Contribution: Grazing management impacts on grassland soil microbial communities, carbon dynamics, and GHG emissions

Contributions: Grazing management effects on soil carbon and vegetation dynamics in grasslands

Research focus information not available.

Contribution: Biological soil crusts and their affect on rangeland ecosystem functions under different grazing systems

Contribution: Impact of grazing systems on belowground nitrogen transfer and nitrogen cycling genes linked to greenhouse gas emissions

Contribution: Impact of grazing systems on seed dispersal by cattle

Contribution: Effects of grazing systems on grassland bird communities and productivity

Contribution: Lead database development and management of the CAT-G Library Information Management System (LIMS).

Contribution: Develop and implement the CAT-G Library Information Management System (LIMS).

Contribution: Develop the CAT-G website and contribute to the CAT-G Library Information Management System (LIMS).

Contribution: Development of machine learning (ML) and bioinformatics pipelines for data integration from soil, plants, livestock, and GHGs.

Research focus information not available.

Research focus information not available.

Research focus information not available.

Research focus information not available.

Research focus information not available.

Research focus information not available.

Research focus information not available.

Research focus information not available.

Research focus information not available.

Research focus information not available.

Research focus information not available.

Research focus information not available.

Research focus information not available.

Research focus information not available.