Tag: VP Research and Innovation

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YorkU celebrates successful launch of OSIRIS-REx

OSIRIS REx at the asteroid Bennu. Image: NASA
OSIRIS REx at the asteroid Bennu. Image: NASA

OSIRIS-REx – the first-ever sampling mission by NASA to the distant asteroid Bennu – was successfully launched into space on Sept. 8 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The mission will revolutionize our understanding of asteroids and the origins of the universe. Attending the launch in Florida as the Canadian scientific lead for the mission was Lassonde Professor Michael Daly.

Mike Daly
Mike Daly

Cheering the launch along (albeit from a distance) was an excited group of York University students from the Lassonde School of Engineering. The students watched the mission unfold through a live stream of the launch on a large screen in the Bergeron Centre for Engineering Excellence at the Keele campus.

Speakers at the event included former student Grant Cunningham, now at Teledyne Optech (an industrial partner involved in the design of the Canadian instrument) who talked about his involvement and his time at York U, and the University’s Vice-President Research & Innovation Robert Haché. As part of the launch celebration, Mariane Mader, managing director of the Royal Ontario Museum’s Earth & Space and Paleontology divisions presented a display table with football sized sample of a meteorite for students and guests to handle and a model of Bennu. To view all the photos from the event, visit the event’s Facebook page here.

“The OSIRIX-REx mission is a prime example of York University expertise being brought to the international table in support of an exceptional collaborative scientific endeavour,” said York Vice-President Research & Innovation Robert Haché. “This project, with York as the lead Canadian university, showcases York’s leadership in space science, which also includes York’s significant contributions to Mars exploration, and demonstrates that there is no limit to where research excellence can take us as students, scholars, and as a university.”

The asteroid Bennu. Image: NASA'S Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
The asteroid Bennu. Image: NASA’S Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland

The Planetary Exploration Instrumentation Laboratory at York University played a pivotal role in the instrumentation for the spacecraft. Canada’s contribution to the mission is the OSIRIS-Rex Laser Altimeter (OLA), the most sophisticated laser altimeter ever to visit an asteroid. OLA and the Canadian science team are funded by the Canadian Space Agency. (OSIRIS-REx is the acronym for a the spacecraft’s complicated moniker, namely the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer Spacecraft.)

The OLA will map the surface of the asteroid and create a 3D model of Bennu during the NASA mission. The instrument, which is about the size of two bread boxes, will also help to guide the spacecraft on the OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Mission to a safe spot, where it will grab a sample to bring back to Earth.

By contributing the OLA, an advanced LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging), to the mission, Canada will get a portion of that sample. The mission is expected to return 60 grams of the asteroid, but more than a kilogram is hoped for. It will provide Canadian scientists the first-ever direct access to a pristine asteroid sample, according to the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), which funded the instrument.

The main part of the mission, the proximity operation, starts seven or eight kilometres from the asteroid. It will be a long process of getting to know the asteroid and its non-uniform gravity field well enough to be able to get down and touch the surface and obtain a sample.

As the prime contractor for the CSA, MacDonald, Dettwiler & Associates (MDA), together with its industrial partner Teledyne Optech, designed, built and tested the instrument.

In addition to Daly, the team also includes Professors Alan Hildebrand, University of Calgary; Ed Cloutis, University of Winnipeg; Rebecca Ghent, University of Toronto; and Catherine Johnson, University of British Columbia. The participation of Canadian universities, including York University, in the OSIRIS-REx Mission is made possible in part by $7.83 million in support from the Canadian Space Agency; as well as additional research funds for Daly, who is the principal investigator on the project, from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Research Fund of $1.35 million and $1.34 million respectively; and by a Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant of $384,500 over five years

Why Bennu?

The image shows a size comparison for the asteroid Bennu. Image: NASA
The image shows a size comparison for the asteroid Bennu. Image: Christina Richey, NASA

Bennu, which is about 500 metres in diameter, is of particular interest because it is one of the most potentially hazardous asteroids presently identified, with a small chance of hitting Earth in the 22nd century. The mission will allow the team to study and track the asteroid’s orbit, as OLA will provide precise distance measurements from the spacecraft to the rocky surface.

The main part of the mission, the proximity operation, starts seven or eight kilometres from the asteroid. It will be a long process of getting to know the asteroid and its non-uniform gravity field well enough to be able to get down and touch the surface and obtain a sample.

For more on the OSIRIS-REx instrumentation, see the story in the Jan. 5, 2016 issue of YFile.

Videos and images courtesy of NASA’S Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.

 

 

Lassonde prof’s research has applications in Arctic safety and nuclear waste

Northern city
Northern city

Research by a professor at the Lassonde School of Engineering at York University has significant applications in determining the long-term safety of storage of nuclear waste, and for civil infrastructure in Canada’s north.

Jit Sharma
Jit Sharma

Professor Jit Sharma and colleagues at the University of Manitoba have developed an easy-to-use mathematical model that captures the effect of temperature-dependent soil viscosity observed when straining rates are varied, and when stresses are held constant.

The model has particular importance when planning the storage of nuclear waste. Capsules containing nuclear waste are often shrouded in compacted clays. Heat radiating from the nuclear waste can alter the mechanical behaviour of the clay surrounding the capsule. The model can be used in predicting the long-term deformation of these compacted clay liners.

The model also has significant applications for the design of civil infrastructure in Canada’s northern communities as successively warmer years have resulted in the thawing of permafrost. It allows designers to combine temperature-dependent mechanical behaviour of permafrost with temperature patterns predicted by various climate change scenarios to come up with reliable and effective long-term design of civil infrastructure.

The findings are published in an article titled “Semi-empirical elastic–thermoviscoplastic model for clay” in the Canadian Geotechnical Journal.

Sharma is the inaugural chair of the Department of Civil Engineering.  He has held academic appointments in India, Singapore, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. From 2001 till his arrival at the York University, Sharma was professor of Geotechnical Engineering at University of Saskatchewan, where he taught soil mechanics, foundation engineering and geotechnical modelling at undergraduate and graduate levels.

Sharma’s research interests include critical state soil mechanics, waste mechanics, geosynthetics, ground improvement techniques, soil-structure interaction, unsaturated soil mechanics, centrifuge modelling, and numerical modelling. His research is funded by the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), industry, academia, and municipal, provincial and federal government agencies. Sharma is an associate editor of Canadian Geotechnical Journal.

York University researchers receive total boost of $7 million in SSHRC awards

Kirsty Duncan
Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan visited York University Friday to announce the SSHRC research funding
Kirsty Duncan
Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan visited York University Friday to announce the SSHRC research funding

Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan paid a visit to York University’s Keele campus on Friday to announce $163 million in Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) funding to support important research across Canada. Forty-four research projects at York University will receive a total boost of $7 million of the federal funding, including $2.5 million for a unique project that looks at migration resiliency in urban Canada.

“Social sciences and humanities researchers help us to understand issues affecting our daily lives and provide evidence for sound policy-making. The Government of Canada believes that only this broad and holistic approach can lead to true discoveries, innovation and solutions that will help all Canadians, including those who now call Canada home,” said Duncan.

York University geography Professor Valerie Preston in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, will receive nearly $2.5 million in funding over five years through the SSHRC Partnership Grants program plus an additional $1.2 million in partner contributions for a total of $3.7 million.

York Vice-President Research & Innovation Robert Hache addresses an audience of students, faculty and staff gathered in the Scott Library
York Vice-President Research & Innovation Robert Haché thanked the Government of Canada for its support of researchers in the social sciences and humanities. Gathered in the Scott Library on the Keele campus to hear the announcement is an audience of students, faculty and staff.

“York has been ranked among the top 100 universities in the world in the humanities and social sciences, so it is wonderful that SSHRC is recognizing the leadership of our researchers with this funding,” said York University President and Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri. “We are particularly delighted for Valerie Preston, whose research in migration and settlement is contributing to York’s leadership in that field, for York researchers who have received funding through the Insight Grants and Partnership Development Grants Programs, and for our graduate students, who have also received substantial support.”

As Robert Haché, York University’s vice-president research & innovation, said “SSHRC’s investment in research excellence in the social sciences and humanities at York University, as well as their support for the next generation of scholars and discoverers, are an affirmation that York University continues to distinguish itself in the breadth and impact of its scholarship, generating knowledge with real-world impact across a full range of disciplines. I want to congratulate today’s award recipients and wish them every success as they move forward with their research programs.”

Professor Valerie Preston
Professor Valerie Preston talks about the focus of the study “Migration and Resilience in Urban Canada: Discovering Strengths and Building Capacity”

Preston, is the lead researcher for the study “Migration and Resilience in Urban Canada: Discovering Strengths and Building Capacity”. Her team will do a comparative analysis of resilience among migrants settling in two of Canada’s major immigration gateways – Toronto and Montreal – as well as large and small municipalities in Ontario and Quebec, and central and suburban locations in Toronto.

“One of the goals of the study is to look at how to improve settlement outcomes and to enhance well-being in the face of economic, political, social and cultural challenges. But also, to pilot strategies that facilitate the efforts of social institutions to promote resilience,” said Preston.

Above: From left, York Vice-President Research & Innovation Robert Haché; Judy Sgro, MP, Humber River-Black Creek; Federal Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan; SSHRC President Ted Hewitt; •Valerie Preston, Partnership Grant lead and professor, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies
Above: From left, York Vice-President Research & Innovation Robert Haché; Judy Sgro, MP, Humber River-Black Creek; Federal Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan; SSHRC President Ted Hewitt;  Valerie Preston, Partnership Grant lead and professor, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies

The research team will examine how social institutions influence resilience and boost migrants’ capacity to settle successfully in Canada. The project was developed in collaboration with CERIS, Ontario’s leading migration studies network, and includes 18 partners from Canadian universities, community-based NGOs, and municipal, provincial and federal government departments and agencies.

Friday’s announcement includes $3.2 million in Insight Grants for more than 25 researcher projects across multiple Faculties, including the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, the Faculty of Environmental Studies, the Schulich School of Business and Osgoode Hall Law School.

Three York researchers also received $573,391 in funding under the Partnership Development Grants Program to foster new research and related activities with new or existing partners, as well as to design and test new partnership approaches.

A complete list of the SSHRC funding grants can be found at http://bit.ly/2cccwbV.

World leading vision research program receives Canada’s premiere grant

MP Judy Sgro looks at a science experiment at York U

York University’s world class expertise in vision research is being recognized by the government of Canada with the nation’s most prestigious research grant. A $33.3 million Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF) grant will support the Vision: Science to Applications (VISTA) program. The investment funds research across a wide range of applications of vision science, from basic visual function, to computer vision and object recognition, and more.

On Thursday, Sept. 8, Judy Sgro, MP, Humber River-Black Creek, was joined by York University’s Vice-President of Research & Innovation, Rob Haché, and York’s VISTA program scientific director and Faculty of Health neuroscience Professor Doug Crawford, to announce the $33.3 million boost.

Above: From left, Pat Clifford, director of research & innovation, Southlake Regional Health Centre; Professor Spiros Pagiatakis, associate dean of research, Lassonde School of Engineering; Piotr Jasiobedzki, staff scientist, MDA Corporation; Faculty of Health Professor Doug Crawford, scientific director, VISTA; Judy Sgro, Member of Parliament, Humber River – Black Creek; Robert Haché, York University vice-president research & innovation; and, Paul MacDonald, dean, Faculty of Health
Above: From left, Pat Clifford, director of research & innovation, Southlake Regional Health Centre; Professor Spiros Pagiatakis, associate dean of research, Lassonde School of Engineering; Piotr Jasiobedzki, staff scientist, MDA Corporation; Faculty of Health Professor Doug Crawford, scientific director, VISTA; Judy Sgro, Member of Parliament, Humber River – Black Creek; Robert Haché, York University vice-president research & innovation; Gary Brewer, York University vice-president finance & administration; and Paul MacDonald, dean, Faculty of Health

“The Liberal government is committed to science based policy because we know that good science informs good policy and good policy delivers positive results for all Canadians,” said Sgro, “Today is a real world example of what that commitment means right here at home. This funding will advance Canada’s global leadership in vision research and in doing so promises long-term economic benefits for all of us.”

Following the announcement MP Judy Sgro toured various demonstrations of equipment and research. Speaking to Sgro is Bob Hou, senior research assistant in the Centre for Vision Research. Looking on are York VPRI Robert Hache and VISTA Scientific Director Doug Crawford.
Following the announcement MP Judy Sgro toured various demonstrations of equipment and research. Speaking to Sgro is Bob Hou, senior research assistant in the Centre for Vision Research. Looking on are York VPRI Robert Haché and VISTA Scientific Director Doug Crawford.

“We are delighted that the federal government has selected York’s VISTA project for support through the CFREF,” said York University President and Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri. “Our Centre for Vision Research is an international leader in the field, and an excellent example of the kind of innovation that can be achieved through high-level collaboration across many disciplines. This investment will allow our globally renowned researchers to continue their important work in advancing discovery in vision technologies and biological and computational vision.”

York’s VISTA program will contribute to the next generation of industry-ready highly qualified personnel for Canada, supporting 226 additional graduate students and post-doctoral fellows.

“Today’s investment builds on York’s existing global leadership in vision research, and will help take us to the next frontier in vision science at the interface between humans and technology,” said Haché, “This research builds on two of York’s major intersecting pillars of research excellence – biological and computational vision – and will lead to human-centred computer vision applications that seamlessly interact with the real world to improve health, safety, productivity and quality of life.”

MP Judy Sgro speaks with a student researcher about a VISTA project
MP Judy Sgro speaks with a student researcher about a VISTA project

“I am thrilled by the Canadian government’s announcement of funding for York’s VISTA program,” said Crawford, “We have grown to rank in the top 5 in the world, and offer uniquely integrated strengths in both biological and computational vision. I look forward with great enthusiasm to reaching new heights of discovery and application for Canadian vision research.”

When fully realized, VISTA will include more than 50 partner organizations, 30 Canada Research Chairs and equivalents, 11 additional core faculty members and 48 associated faculty members.  The investments for VISTA, including York University and partner funding, will total more than $120 million.

Open Access Open Data Steering Committee to support York community

Vari Hall

Following a period of consultation in late 2015, the Tri-Agency implemented its Open Access Policy on Publications and its Statement of Principles on Digital Data Management in 2016.

The viewpoints articulated during this period of discussion surfaced varied needs across scholarly communities. While Canada is no stranger to funding agency policies, or for that matter, institutional policies, the Tri-Agency mandate introduces a framework with an unprecedented disciplinary reach and a corresponding range of implications for York University.

With the aim of supporting community members with policy compliance and to continue these valuable conversations, a campus-wide steering committee will convene in the fall to strategize how best to move forward in this area.

The committee also wishes to foster campus dialogue around emerging opportunities afforded by developing models in scholarly communications. This may include discussions towards finding sustainable publishing practices, demystifying the legal landscape for authors, and developing a scholarly culture that is mindful and strategic in its uses of multiple modes of dissemination.

The Open Access Open Data Steering Committee will engage in broad stakeholder discussions to advance the following goals:

  • To coordinate campus-wide education on open access and data management particularly in light of Tri-Agency Open Access Policy requirements and the Tri-agency Statement of Principles on Digital Data Management.
  • To articulate a framework and coordinated service models that support faculty with these requirements.
  • To create a wider forum for discussion and consideration on changes to the system of scholarship, sustainability of current economic models of scholarship, access to publicly funded research, issues surrounding authors rights in the digital age, and new scholarly distribution systems and other connected open movements.

The committee consists of the following membership, and will report back to the community through the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation:

• Joy Kirchner, University librarian – co-chair
• Sushanta Mitra, associate vice-president, Research – (co-chair)
• Bob Gagne, chief information officer, University Information Technology
• Andrea Kosavic, digital initiatives librarian/acting associate University librarian, Digital Services
• Patricia Lynch, representative, Copyright Office

Two associate deans of research:
• Carys Craig, Osgoode Hall Law School
• Sylvie Morin, Faculty of Science

Seven faculty members representing diverse areas including one Academic Policy, Planning & Research Committee (APPRC) member:
• Faculty of Environmental Studies: TBD
• Faculty of Education: Karen Krasny, associate professor
• Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS): Mark Hayward, assistant professor, Department of Communications Studies
• LA&PS: Markus Reisenleitner, professor, Department of Humanities
• LA&PS: Susan McGrath, professor, School of Social Work
• Faculty of Health: Chris Ardern, associate professor, School of Kinesiology & Health Science
• APPRC: Logan Donaldson, Faculty of Science

York community members can anticipate further communications and outreach on behalf of the committee as meetings begin.

A web presence for the committee can be found at http://www.library.yorku.ca/web/oaod/.

York prof and postdocs author book chapter reviewing decades of research on ciliate protozoa

Professor Ron Pearlman
University Professor Ron Pearlman
Professor Ron Pearlman
University Professor Ron Pearlman

University Professor Emeritus Ron Pearlman in the Faculty of Science and two of his former postdocs Wendy Ashlock and Takahiko Akematsu have authored a chapter titled “Communication in Tetrahymena Reproduction” in the book Biocommunication of Ciliates (Springer, 2016). The chapter reviews decades of research on this topic and includes results from Pearlman’s lab at York University going back more than 40 years.

Ciliates are a group of diverse, unicellular organisms; they have hair-like organelles on their surface called cilia to help them move around and gather food, and you can likely scoop up thousands of them from a pond or any body of fresh water.

Pearlman has dedicated his research career to using ciliates, particularly the genus Tetrahymena, as a model to study basic and paradigm-setting questions related to biology and genetics.

“Ciliates have a large and complex genome only 30 times smaller than ours,” explains Pearlman. “They are an ideal experimental model because their genome is completely sequenced—work my lab contributed to extensively—and state-of-the-art technologies allow scientists to easily move around, mutate and clone genes in these organisms. Tetrahymena is one of the most popular animal model organisms, with much of its biology relevant to humans.”

The book chapter that Pearlman and his postdocs authored covers reproduction in Tetrahymena, a major focus of Pearlman’s research program. Typical of ciliates, Tetrahymena have two nuclei in a single cell that have essentially the same DNA but are structurally and functionally distinct: the germline nucleus, which doesn’t express its genes, and the somatic nucleus, which does express its genes. Pearlman has been particularly interested in understanding how Tetrahymena keep their genomic structure organized during sexual reproduction (when at one point there are up to five different nuclei in the cell), why gene expression differs between their two nuclei, and how genes get scrambled or lost during sexual reproduction. Research from Pearlman’s lab and by other scientists focused on these questions is highlighted in the book chapter.

“My former postdocs were integral to conducting the research that is profiled in the chapter,” adds Pearlman.

Ashlock, who has a PhD in computer science from York, held an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship with Pearlman. She used computational approaches to explore how the genome is reorganized during development and how DNA is packaged in Tetrahymena. Takahiko Akematsu was one of York’s first Banting postdoctoral fellows and has now moved to a position at the University of Vienna in Austria supported by another highly prestigious cancer research fellowship. In Pearlman’s lab, he took an interest in understanding how the ciliate degrades its old somatic nucleus during development through a process called autophagy (also known to be very important in mammals).

The Quad community begins to take shape

Over the past six months, two six-storey buildings have quickly taken shape at the corner of The Pond Road and Sentinel Road. Together, these buildings are the Quad student housing community, which is scheduled to open in time for the fall 2017 academic semester, adding 812 beds of new high-quality student housing for the York University community.

Quad image
Each corner of both Quad buildings will have a unique etching pattern in its metal panels designed by Montreal artist Nicolas Baier

The Quad is being developed through a unique agreement between York University and a private Canadian company, FCS Development Corp., which is in turn formed by Campus Suites and Forum Equity Partners. FCS will lease the Quad site from the University and is designing, building, financing and operating the new facility and delivering it at no net cost to the University.

Henry Morton, president of Campus Suites and a York University alumnus, is happy with the progress to date and looks forward to showcasing the full scope of the project to the community.

“We look forward to having our new model suite and office open this September on Sentinel Road, just south of the construction site, so that we can start to get our prospective residents all signed up and ready for move in,” he said. “The Quad is expected to be ready in early July 2017 so that it will be in prime condition when everyone is set to go.”

Quad image 3
The construction site as viewed on Canada Day

Construction work continues, including the creation of a new north-south road (Haynes Avenue) linking The Pond Road to Assiniboine Road, and alterations to Sentinel Road. This new road will improve both pedestrian and vehicular access to the main campus from the south. The majority of the road work will take place in July and August when traffic is at its lowest, and notices of any road and parking disruptions will be widely communicated by Campus Services and Business Operations (CSBO).

This fall, the exterior of the buildings will be completed.

“You will soon see windows and the exterior of the building taking shape,” said Morton. “When our exterior panels start going on, you will see the roll out of our remarkable public art.  We engaged a number of York faculty members in this process and their assistance was invaluable.

A time-lapse camera has been installed to document the progress of the buildings, and those interested can follow it here.

The Quad will also add a variety of new businesses and services on its ground floor, easily accessible to those on campus and living to the south. The businesses will include a wide range of new restaurants, a community bike centre, a dentist, a hair salon and more.

Quad image 2
Both buildings feature a large landscape exterior courtyard

“The Quad student housing community will benefit York’s students, and is part of our broader housing strategy of reinvesting in our existing residences and working with experienced private firms to deliver new beds,” said Gary Brewer, vice-president finance and administration at York University. “This project will deliver high-quality new housing on the doorstep of our classrooms.”

 

York University welcomes delegation from Zibo, China

The Zibo Delegation

York University’s Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation welcomed a delegation of government representatives and business from Zibo, China including Gao Qingbo, the deputy mayor, Zibo Municipal People’s Government. The visit, which was led by Innovation York at York University, took place on June 16 to help facilitate opportunities for future research collaborations.

Delegates from Zibo gather with York University representatives
Delegates from Zibo gather with York University representatives

“We are looking forward to exploring the intersection of common priorities and developing opportunities for your organizations to partner with York University,” said Associate Vice-President Research Celia Haig-Brown, during the discussions. “We hope that, through the developments today, we can continue to build on and establish long-term and meaningful institutional relationships to support research in a wide variety of areas ranging from life sciences to electronic information to engineering to policy and beyond.”

Innovation York supports the transformation of teaching and creative endeavours into social and economic benefits with real-world applications in today’s global knowledge-based economy.  Through Innovation York, researchers and students can access academic tools and a suite of services to connect with partners in industry, government and non-profit organizations in order to accelerate their innovative ideas from concept to impact – one of the key areas of opportunity that was explored at this visit.

The visit provided a forum for delegates from China to meet with researchers at York University to discuss and explore opportunities for research collaborations and site visits to York University research labs
The visit provided a forum for delegates from China to meet with researchers at York University to discuss and explore opportunities for research collaborations and site visits to York University research labs

The visit provided a forum for delegates from China to meet with researchers at York University to discuss and explore opportunities for research collaborations and site visits to York University research labs including the Orbitrap Ultra-High resolution mass spectrometer, the nuclear magnetic resonance labs and Associate Professor Derek Wilson’s lab which includes infrastructure for mass spectrometry and microfluidics fabrication.

Steven Wang, professor of mathematics  and statistics of York University, is planning to visit Zibo later this summer to explore opportunities of collaboration with Zibo’s medical institutions to commercialize the research projects of his team. The Zibo government has now designated Zibo Medical Industry Association to coordinate Wang’s visit to Zibo and business meetings with local hospitals, enterprises and universities.

Fruit flies change genes to adapt to cool temps

drosophila
drosophila

Research conducted by an international team that includes scientists from York University has revealed that the common fruit fly exhibits sophisticated adaptations in response to temperature fluctuations.

While fruit flies may seem simple, these common visitors to the fruit bowl can drastically alter their gene expression and metabolism to respond to temperature changes in their environment.

The finding is important because understanding how insects tolerate changes in temperature is a crucial step in protecting and controlling insects worldwide, says Heath MacMillan, a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Biology at York University. MacMillan led the study in collaboration with researchers in Canada, Switzerland and Japan.

Common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Image by: Heath MacMillan, York University
Common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Image by Heath MacMillan, York University

With rapid and unprecedented climate change, the need to understand how insects are affected is increasingly necessary, especially as they represent more than 75 per cent of all animal species. The research was published June 30 in Scientific Reports.

“Temperature is one of the strongest predictors of the global distribution of insect species,” said MacMillan. “This is because temperature affects all aspects of insect physiology and limits the ability of insects to move, eat and reproduce.”

Unlike mammals and birds, most insects are ectotherms, meaning their body temperature tracks the temperature of their environment. This can be challenging because when winter hits insects have to cope with how their lower body temperature reduces the rates of all the chemical reactions needed to keep their metabolism humming.

As a result, insects modify their physiology and behaviour to respond to temperature and can continue to function even at quite low temperatures. This ability, called thermal acclimation, is necessary for insect survival over the cold winter months, but how this happens is still not well understood.

Since many insects carry disease, are crop pests or are helpful to humans as pollinators, understanding the mechanisms behind thermal acclimation improves scientists’ abilities to predict changes to insect populations as the Earth’s climate rapidly changes.

For the study, researchers raised common fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, from eggs through to their larval or maggot stages at a room temperature 21 C. Once they were adults, half of the flies were transferred to a 6 C space.

“The flies responded to this change by changing the expression of genes and proteins in their bodies, which has downstream impacts on the metabolic pathways they use,” said MacMillan. “After six days of keeping the two groups of flies at 21 and 6 C, we sampled all of them and measured the expression of every one of their genes and the abundance of every metabolite, or chemical, in the flies that we could identify.”

The researchers expected to see changes in the flies that were exposed to the cold, but were surprised by the extent of them. “We saw nearly a third of the fly’s genes increased or decreased in expression, and the abundance of roughly half of the metabolites changed at the same time,” said Brent Sinclair, associate professor at Western University and senior author of the study. “Many of the genes and metabolites we saw changing are in support of the current state of knowledge on insect cold tolerance, which is encouraging. However, a lot of what we saw was new and is providing us with some exciting paths forward.”

The researchers plan to use this information to examine specifically how the genes and metabolites identified in the study are contributing to insect survival in the cold. “Given the length of the list, it will be no small task,” said MacMillan. “The list of targets we have now is a hazy map to the treasure that is a complete understanding of cold tolerance. Ultimately, this map will help drive us toward new applications in the realms of agriculture and disease transmission.”

The research was supported by the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Researchers discover that fruit flies adjust to sudden drops in temperature

Drosophila

Research conducted by an international team that includes scientists from York University has revealed that the common fruit fly exhibits sophisticated adaptations in response to temperature fluctuations.

While fruit flies may seem simple, these common visitors to the fruit bowl can drastically alter their gene expression and metabolism to respond to temperature changes in their environment.

The finding is important because understanding how insects tolerate changes in temperature is a crucial step in protecting and controlling insects worldwide, says Heath MacMillan, a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Biology at York University. MacMillan led the study in collaboration with researchers in Canada, Switzerland and Japan.

Common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Image by: Heath MacMillan, York University
Common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Image by Heath MacMillan, York University

With rapid and unprecedented climate change, the need to understand how insects are affected is increasingly necessary, especially as they represent more than 75 per cent of all animal species. The research was published June 30 in Scientific Reports.

“Temperature is one of the strongest predictors of the global distribution of insect species,” said MacMillan. “This is because temperature affects all aspects of insect physiology and limits the ability of insects to move, eat and reproduce.”

Unlike mammals and birds, most insects are ectotherms, meaning their body temperature tracks the temperature of their environment. This can be challenging because when winter hits insects have to cope with how their lower body temperature reduces the rates of all the chemical reactions needed to keep their metabolism humming.

As a result, insects modify their physiology and behaviour to respond to temperature and can continue to function even at quite low temperatures. This ability, called thermal acclimation, is necessary for insect survival over the cold winter months, but how this happens is still not well understood.

Since many insects carry disease, are crop pests or are helpful to humans as pollinators, understanding the mechanisms behind thermal acclimation improves scientists’ abilities to predict changes to insect populations as the Earth’s climate rapidly changes.

For the study, researchers raised common fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, from eggs through to their larval or maggot stages at a room temperature 21 C. Once they were adults, half of the flies were transferred to a 6 C space.

“The flies responded to this change by changing the expression of genes and proteins in their bodies, which has downstream impacts on the metabolic pathways they use,” said MacMillan. “After six days of keeping the two groups of flies at 21 and 6 C, we sampled all of them and measured the expression of every one of their genes and the abundance of every metabolite, or chemical, in the flies that we could identify.”

The researchers expected to see changes in the flies that were exposed to the cold, but were surprised by the extent of them. “We saw nearly a third of the fly’s genes increased or decreased in expression, and the abundance of roughly half of the metabolites changed at the same time,” said Brent Sinclair, associate professor at Western University and senior author of the study. “Many of the genes and metabolites we saw changing are in support of the current state of knowledge on insect cold tolerance, which is encouraging. However, a lot of what we saw was new and is providing us with some exciting paths forward.”

The researchers plan to use this information to examine specifically how the genes and metabolites identified in the study are contributing to insect survival in the cold. “Given the length of the list, it will be no small task,” said MacMillan. “The list of targets we have now is a hazy map to the treasure that is a complete understanding of cold tolerance. Ultimately, this map will help drive us toward new applications in the realms of agriculture and disease transmission.”

The research was supported by the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada.