To listen to the podcast and read about the story, please visit CBC’s As It Happens.

This research demonstrates that these apex predators are a crucial link between the marine and terrestrial ecosystems. By hunting seals on the sea ice and abandoning the remains, polar bears transfer a substantial amount of energy from the ocean to the ice surface, making it accessible to other animals. The study identifies at least 11 vertebrate species known to benefit from this carrion, including Arctic foxes and ravens, with an additional eight potential scavenger species.

“Our findings quantify for the first time, the sheer scale of polar bears as a food provider to other species and the interconnectedness of their ecosystem,” says Holly Gamblin, lead author of the study and PhD Candidate in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Science. “What is apparent from this review is that there is no other species that adequately replaces how a polar bear hunts, in which they drag their prey from the water to the sea ice and leave substantial remains for other species to access.”

Past research has emphasized that continued warming in the Arctic and the resulting loss of sea ice directly endanger polar bear populations. However, this new research highlights that a decline in polar bears would not only impact the species itself but the loss of the carrion they provide could have significant consequences for the entire Arctic ecosystem.

“Our research highlights the important role of polar bears as carrion providers,” says Dr. Nicholas Pilfold, Scientist in Population Sustainability at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. “The sea ice acts as a platform for many species to access scavenging resources provided by polar bears, and ultimately, declines in sea ice will reduce access to this energy source. Our findings indicate that documented declines in polar bear abundance in two subpopulations have already resulted in the loss of more than 300 tonnes of food resources for scavengers annually.”

These findings highlight the interdependence of arctic wildlife species and their shared vulnerabilities in the face of rapid environmental change. With polar bear populations continuing to decline, this research underscores the urgency of conservation efforts to protect them, not only for their own sake but for the species that rely on them.

Link to study: https://www.authorea.com/users/793787/articles/1290812-predators-and-scavengers-polar-bears-as-marine-carrion-providers?commit=8312ffd1b368d798b4758110ab2c469160173010

DOI: 10.22541/au.174585452.23211757/v1

About San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance 

San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, a nonprofit conservation leader, inspires passion for nature and collaboration for a healthier world. The Alliance supports innovative conservation science through global partnerships and groundbreaking efforts at the world-famous San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park, both leading zoological institutions and accredited botanical gardens. Through wildlife care expertise, cutting-edge science and continued collaboration, more than 44 endangered species have been reintroduced to native habitats. The Alliance reaches over 1 billion people annually through its two conservation parks and media channels in 170 countries, including San Diego Zoo Wildlife Explorers television, available in children’s hospitals across 14 countries. Wildlife Allies—members, donors and guests—make success possible. 

About University of Manitoba

The University of Manitoba (UM) is recognized as Western Canada’s first university. It is part of the U15, ranking among Canada’s top research-intensive universities and provides exceptional undergraduate and graduate liberal arts, science and professional programs of study. UM campuses and research spaces are located on original lands of Anishinaabeg, Ininiwak, Anisininewuk, Dakota Oyate, Dene and Inuit, and on the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. UM recognizes that the Treaties signed on these lands are a lifelong, enduring relationship, and we are dedicated to upholding their spirit and intent. Our collaboration with Indigenous communities is grounded in respect and reciprocity and this guides how we move forward as an institution. For more information, please visit umanitoba.ca.

University of Manitoba astrophysicist Samar Safi-Harb, the Canada Research Chair in Extreme Astrophysics, and her team are collaborators on the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA program, which on Monday published evidence of what Safi-Harb says is “the most massive binary black hole detected to date.”

Another surprise from the detection, originally made in November 2023, was the breakneck speed at which each black hole was spinning at the time they crashed together — “close to the maximum possible [speed] allowed by theory,” said Safi-Harb, who is also a professor of physics and astronomy at the Winnipeg-based U of M.

To read the entire story, please follow the link to CBC Manitoba.

CTV also covered this story and you can listen/watch it by following the link to CTV Winnipeg.

“This is an extremely popular field of study at the moment, as changes in the composition of the intestinal microbiome have been shown to be associated with all sorts of diseases”, says McGregor.

The size and the atypical probability distribution of microbiome data are the two main challenges that scientists face in this field. McGregor’s work is novel in developing methodologies for data dimension reduction. His PhD student, Saurabh Panchasara, has developed a method that addresses this.

To learn more about McGregor’s work and his vision for the future, please visit the Faculty of Science’s YouTube channel.

With the fast growth of computer science and its applications in almost every field, the undergraduate programs offered by the department are an amazing opportunity to gain the skills and knowledge needed to feel confident in your career choices.

From Machine Learning (ML) to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and data security, the department offers a wide range of research groups you can join. Whether you’re an undergraduate student looking for valuable lab experience or a graduate student looking to engage in cutting-edge research, the department has many research experts who lead the way.

The Department of Computer Science is also strongly committed to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility (EDIA), making sure everyone is supported while recognizing and addressing the inherent systemic biases.

To learn more about the department and hear from the community that makes it an amazing place to work and study, please visit the Faculty of Science’s YouTube channel.

The award recognizes Pistorius’s contributions to strengthening the Canadian physics community, enhancing the profession of physical scientists, communicating physics to the public and making physics more attractive as a career. All of which Pistorius has accomplished through over 30 years of service in various roles.

“Stephen Pistorius is, first and foremost, a dedicated and inspirational leader, a creative and efficient administrator, and simultaneously, an excellent and innovative researcher”, says Dr. Robert Stamps, the head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manitoba.

When asked what drives him to serve his community through leadership, Pistorius says, “That’s sort of come naturally. People ask people for help, and I tend to have a difficulty in saying no,” he continues, “But while it’s a lot of work, I enjoy it. And I enjoy making a difference.”

To learn more about Pistorius’s contributions and service to Canadian physics and medical physics, please watch the full interview on the Faculty of Science’s YouTube channel.

Please tell us about your research and its importance.

My master’s research was in the field of proteomics, where we used analytical chemistry practices such as liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) to identify thousands of proteins in the analysis of human tissues or cell cultures. A fundamental step in this process is to predictably break down proteins into smaller pieces called peptides, then separate these peptides by their chemical properties. The goal of my research specifically was to characterize how post-translational modifications, chemical modifications of proteins which serve a biological function, affect their separation on the peptide level. These characterizations served to generate prediction models that can be used to complement other validation tools, increasing the confidence of a researcher’s results during their proteomics investigations of human diseases, or can be used by companies in the quality control of commercial protein products.

Whom did you collaborate with in your research, and how was the experience for you?

My research project entailed minimal collaboration, but we did have one collaboration with a chromatography company, PolyLC, which provided materials and insights for us to generate a predictive model, which resulted in a paper. Nonetheless, I had a great experience. Despite being a chemistry student, my lab was on the Bannatyne campus in the Manitoba Centre for Proteomics and Systems Biology, a research centre with multiple research groups from different departments. Each week, we would have a research seminar for the centre where a student was given the opportunity to present their results and receive advice on their projects. This not only allowed me to gather knowledge from outside chemistry but also allowed me to benefit from the perspectives of different disciplines and learn to present outside of my field. In the end, this bolstered a novel sense of direction for my research and development of my communication skills.

Who were your mentors (committee members, supervisors, other professors or graduate students) throughout your MSc studies, and what were the biggest lessons you learned from them?

I had many mentors during my studies. From my co-supervisors, Dr. Oleg Krokhin and Dr. Helene Perreault, my committee members Dr. Sabine Kuss, Dr. Gregg Tomy, and Dr. Rene Zahedi, and to my other lab members Dr. Darien Yeung and Vic Spicer, I had many opportunities to learn where and how to improve. Each of them deserves some credit for my success over the last few years. By far, the biggest impact on my studies came from the support Dr. Krokhin and Dr. Perreault provided, always answering my questions and considering my ideas, no matter how outlandish they may have been. Dr. Krokhin trained me directly, which is quite different from many graduate experiences where senior students are responsible for training the new students. The biggest lesson I learned from my mentors was a line I heard often, “you have one chance in life”, which obviously isn’t always true, but comes with the notion that you need to be careful at every step. One mistake will set you back and delay your progress. Write out your ideas, think about them, plan, adjust if necessary, and then convert them into something actionable. Reminds me of the saying my dad used to say, “measure twice, cut once”.

What is your vision for the future of your research, and what do the next steps look like in your journey?

After some thinking, I decided I wanted to learn more biology and I have recently started a PhD with Dr. Rene Zahedi where I plan to venture into spatial proteomics where we will investigate not only at the protein content of samples, but how they are organized in tissue samples and the modifications that those proteins carry. I am interested in the idea of applying for medical school to go into the MD/PhD stream. This would open the door for clinical science research directly related to human diseases. Only time will tell.

From left to right, Andrea Ladouceur, Rana Ahmed, Paula Pineda Sanchez, Ghosoun Alomari

Ahmed is part of a team of three, with two other members being Ghosoun Alomari and Paula Pineda Sanchez. Alomari and Sanchez are two undergraduate students in the Faculty of Science. When Ahmed pitched their idea, she was competing against seven more teams. All of which had innovative ideas to tackle real-world problems and positively impact communities.

Selecting the winner was not an easy task for the judges. All the teams had brilliant ideas and worked relentlessly on their pitch. However, one could see how everyone was moved by Ahmed’s pitch. At the end, “A Smarter Way to Stop Cholera Outbreaks – No Antibiotics Needed” won first place. 

“We were over the moon… I didn’t expect that because all the finalists were excellent”, said Ahmed in her interview with the Faculty of Science. She mentioned their team has heard from the Bioscience Association of Manitoba to see how they can advance the project. For the future, Ahmed and her team would like to apply to the Lab2Market program at UM. They hope to get funds, proceed with the idea, and see it come to fruition in real-world applications.

To learn more about the project, watch the full interview on the Faculty of Science’s YouTube channel. 

Jerry Lu, PhD Student; Jiguang Yao, PhD Student; both from the Department of Physics and Astronomy

You might think controlling the speed of light directionally is a far-fetched idea. But what seems like science fiction is very much the reality of two PhD students’ work. Jiguang Yao and Jerry Lu are PhD students at the UM Faculty of Science. They are both members of Dr. Can-Ming Hu’s lab at the Department of Physics and Astronomy. They also collaborate with Dr. Greg E. Bridges from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. 

The Physical Review Letters recently published their work as an Editor’s Suggestion. Their work was also Featured in Physics via a Viewpoint article. In their paper, the team advances the pursuit of controlling the speed of light by achieving both slow and fast light within a single system. 

They precisely control the group velocity of a microwave pulse through the power of magnetism to realise nonreciprocal propagation. This is one of the oldest disciplines in physics. This means, while the pulse is delayed in one direction, it advances in the other direction. It creates the possibility of one side seeing the pulse in slow motion, while the other sees it in fast motion. 

“It’s mainly important for information technology that uses light as the medium. In these kinds of technologies, the information is carried by the light pulse. So, our technology allows you to control the pulse speed to regulate the information. It also has the potential to enable a completely new type of logical devices”, says Yao. 

Watch the full video on the Faculty of Science’s YouTube channel to learn more.

UM’s Eric Collins, Canada Research Chair in Arctic Marine Microbial Ecosystem Services, at the Churchill Marine Observatory on the western shore of Hudson Bay // Photos by Katie Chalmers-Brooks

“So, the intention is to monitor waterways that are in their jurisdictions. And so, we have several community partners around the Prairies North region. And those partners will be leaders in helping us guide the research. So it’ll be particularly impactful for them because it’s designed that way.”, says Eric Collins, principal investigator of the project.

Collins is an assistant professor at the Clayton H. Riddell Faculty of Environment, Earth, and Resources and holds a Canada Research Chair in Arctic Marine Microbial Ecosystem Services at the Centre for Earth Observation Science, Environment and Geography.

Three researchers from the Microbiology Department at the Faculty of Science are also involved in the project as co-principal investigators: Marike Palmer, assistant professor; Ayush Kumar, professor and associate dean of strategic initiatives; and Miguel Uyaguari, assistant professor and Indigenous scholar.

The project consists of 3 themes. 1) Reciprocal Ecologies, 2) Altered Landscapes, and 3) Human-Constructed Systems.

Marike Palmer and a student in the field. Photo credit: Aman Verma

“My own research is very much tied to the research theme one to this project, focused on the biodiversity exploration and understanding what the different microbial communities look like and how they change over time. Where we’re basically trying to uncover any microbial novelty and at the same time trying to see how those microbial communities differ over time and trying to figure out if we actually need active conservation efforts for the biodiversity captured in those environments”, says Palmer, who is involved with theme one, exploring the microbial community diversity in natural waterways.

Theme two focuses on monitoring invasive species in rehabilitated lakes and is in collaboration with the Experimental Lakes Area.

Theme 3 looks at the role of the antimicrobial resistance genes and other potential pathogens in municipal water systems in First Nations communities. Both Kumar and Uyaguari are involved with theme 3. Kumar’s research is regarding mechanisms of antibiotic resistance in bacteria.

Ayush Kumar

“We are interested in antibiotic resistance, which is considered a silent pandemic. Globally, antibiotic-resistant infections kill about 1.3 million people every year. So, looking at the prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria in the environment is very, very critical when it comes to how to address the problem. And one way of doing that is by looking at the present in the environment that may encode for various antibiotic resistance. The aspects that we are involved in this project can help coming up with ways where we can improve the safety of the water and spread of antibiotic resistance”, says Kumar.

Uyaguari’s research focuses on antimicrobial-resistance genes that could be present in water and wastewater treatment facilities in Indigenous communities.

Miguel Uyaguari

“My involvement is to look at antimicrobial-resistance genes that could be present in water antimicrobial-resistance genes that could be present in water and wastewater treatment facilities in Indigenous communities to evaluate the discharges from, wastewater facilities and oxidation lagoons in these communities, as well as evaluate the water cycle in general from a microbiological perspective.”, says Uyaguari.

The grant also creates opportunities for graduate students to get involved in the project through the various principal investigators.

To learn more, please watch the full interview on the Faculty of Science’s YouTube channel and visit the Genome Canada website.