A two-day symposium in the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research will showcase the talents of its up-and-coming young scientists, says director Daniel Heath.

“Our aquatic ecosystems are vulnerable to multiple, interacting stressors such as exotic invasive species, toxic chemicals, habitat alteration, climate change and overexploitation,” he says. “GLIER’s graduate students investigate how our ecosystems are impacted by threats to biodiversity using cutting-edge techniques.”

The Multidisciplinary Graduate Student Symposium runs April 7 and 8 in GLIER conference room 250 at 2990 Riverside Drive West.

It is free and open to the public and will feature 37 research presentations in seven categories:

• Biogeochemistry and lake chemistry;
• Animal behaviour;
• Toxicology and contaminants;
• Invasive species;
• Genetics;
• Trophic ecology and movement; and
• participants in the Erasmus Create program, which provides graduate students with expertise in the environmental effects of metals.

Keynote addresses will open each day’s sessions. On Thursday, geographer and filmmaker Jennifer Pate will discuss her cross-oceanic voyages to explore plastics pollution. On Friday, Kim Scribner, a professor at Michigan State University and with the US Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, will present “Ecological, demographic and genetic complexities associated with studies of Great Lakes sturgeon, a long-lived iteroparous species.”

Find the full symposium program on the GLIER website.