Daily Bulletin, Monday, August 22
Jesse Rodgers
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Monday, August 22, 2005
* Grad student studies African lakes
* Argentina as seen by its authors
Editor:
Chris Redmond
E-mail announcements to bull...@uwaterloo.ca
Rebecca North
University of Waterloo PhD student Rebecca North conducts water
samples in Lake Victoria, along with Alex Aguzu, a technician from the
Fisheries Resources Research Institute in Uganda.
Grad student studies African lakes by Barbara Elve, Communications &
Public
Affairs
Growing up on Lake Ontario's Bay of Quinte with a passion for the
water, Rebecca North naturally found herself drifting into a career as
a limnologist.
By the time she submitted her Grade 8 science project on the water
quality of the Bay of Quinte, she was well on her way. As a bonus, she
discovered that limnology - the study of physical, chemical and
biological properties of inland waters - allowed her to pursue other
interests like canoeing, scuba diving and travelling.
Today, North is working toward her PhD in biology at the University of
Waterloo, comparing iron levels in the waters of Lake Erie with those
in Lakes Malawi, Victoria and Tanganyika in Africa. She believes there
may be a relationship between iron levels and algae growth.
"Lake Malawi is very clear and has low nutrient concentrations. Lake
Tanganyika is also very clear and pristine. By contrast, Lake Victoria
- the second largest lake in the world after Lake Superior - is like
pea soup. It's very shallow, and algae are becoming a problem."
She explains: "Adding iron doesn't appear to stimulate algae growth,
but it does allow algae to take up more nitrogen. That, in turn,
stimulates algae growth and allows more phosphorus uptake. If you add
all three, you get the most growth, as opposed to adding any one
singly."
The iron data for Lake Erie has already been published, she adds. Her
research will find out if the influence of iron on algae growth is the
same in the spectrum of lakes.
By discovering which factors stimulate algae growth, North hopes to
find ways of preventing toxic algae blooms that can threaten the
health of people or animals drinking the water - and wreak havoc on
the lake's entire ecosystem.
She first visited Africa in 2001 while conducting research toward a
master's degree. Travelling with her adviser, UW biology professor
Stephanie Guildford, North examined the nutrient status of algae
populations in Lake Malawi and Lake Victoria.
Waterloo has a long history of research in the area, beginning in 1964
with the appointment of Noel Hynes - who had extensive experience in
Africa - as the first chair of the biology department. Following in
his wake were Arthur Harrison and Herbert Fernando, and later, Bill
Taylor and Hamish Duthie, who forged close ties with the University of
Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.
In the 1990s, master's students from Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania
began pursuing studies in fisheries and limnology at Waterloo as part
of the Lake Malawi/Nyasa Biodiversity Project, with a number of
Canadian graduate and post-doctoral students involved as well.
Supervisors included UW biology professors Dave Barton and Robert
Hecky, as well as Guildford, Duthie and Taylor.
Today, many of the same faculty members, along with Sherry Schiff and
George Dixon, are working on projects with researchers from Africa,
Europe and across North America not only on the African Great Lakes,
but also on numerous lakes and rivers across the continent.
North received a $20,000 Doctoral Research Award from the
International Development Research Centre in Ottawa to return to
Africa in 2004 to conduct her doctoral studies at Lakes Malawi and
Victoria, and to visit Lake Tanganyika as well. Adding another lake
allowed her to introduce "tons more data," in addition to
"strengthening ties with African researchers and programs."
Along the way, she rendezvoused with her fianc? in Zanzibar where they
were married. They spent their honeymoon on a safari in the Serengeti.
North receives a $21,000 annual stipend from the National Sciences and
Engineering Research Council of Canada, and has had help with her
conference travel expenses from the International Association for
Great Lakes Research.
While she hopes to find answers to questions that can help ensure
better water quality for people in Africa and around the world, North
says funding for her work also helps train a new generation of African
technicians and research scientists, and purchases and maintains
equipment for laboratories in Africa.
"Ideally, the results of this study will be recognized by the Malawian
and Ugandan governments, and lead to increased efforts to avoid
pollution of Lake Malawi," she says. "If they realize that their
pristine lake could evolve to a condition similar to Lake Victoria and
that they may have to deal with the associated consequences, the
Malawian government may take preventative action now, before it is too
late."
Argentina as seen by its authors by Naomi Sunderland, Arts Research Update
Maria del Carmen Sillato Mar?a del Carmen Sillato of the University of
Waterloo Spanish and Latin American Studies department believes that
academics in the humanities and social sciences have an important role
to play in helping the survivors of civil unrest and war in foreign
countries to document and overcome traumatic experiences.
For Sillato, this means using the resources of academic research and
analysis to understand, respond and make testament to the various ways
that survivors express themselves in literature.
"Since my area of research is Latin American testimonial literature,
my main contribution comes from analyzing the different discourse
strategies employed by survivors and the different ways they express
what is sometimes unbearable to describe," Sillato said.
"I believe that more research needs to be done in this area,
especially here in Canada where survivors of different nationalities
arrive periodically after having endured challenging and often
horrific experiences."
Sillato is about to embark on a major research and outreach project
that will result in a unique collection of writings produced by
survivors of the latest dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983). She
will use a wide range of writings (poetry, prose, songs, novels) to
create a testimonial to survivors' experiences. The collection will
also help to preserve historical memory in and of Argentina.
"I hope to emphasize that this kind of writing is a therapeutic
exercise, helping the authors to heal the emotional pain left by the
experiences they endured during the time they spent in concentration
camps and regular political prisons in Argentina," Sillato said.
"Preserving these accounts is also an effective way to challenge the
'official discourse' and oblivions policies of the former regime."
Well-known Canadian author Naomi Klein recently interviewed Sillato to
talk about the political and economic processes of the past and
present in Argentina. Sillato is also an internationally recognized
author in her own right, having received the Historical Memory of
Latin American and Caribbean Women Award in 2000 and the Best Book
Award of the Canadian Association of Hispanists in 1997.
Actually it's the Wetlands Group
In last Friday's news item on the University of Waterloo visit by
Iraqi scientists seeking to reverse an ecological disaster in the
country's Mesopotamian Marshes, the Wetlands Group was incorrectly
named. The group, including UW Prof. Barry Warner, brings together
wetlands specialists from across the campus.
C&PA
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