��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge biologist finds a new tool to help save endangered plant species

caroline.zentner — Fri, 04 Aug 2023 20:03:42 +0000

Dr. Jenny McCune, a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge biology professor, collaborated with an up-and-coming filmmaker to produce a documentary designed to focus greater public attention on endangered plant species and her fight to save them.

The Quiet Green Creatures highlights the work McCune and her students are doing in southern Ontario to boost the sustainability of two endangered plant species, the wood poppy and crooked-stem aster.

The number of plant species at risk in Canada outweighs endangered animals, she says, yet their plight hasn’t seemed to catch the public’s interest to the same degree.

“They're part of our wildlife, and they're just as worthy of us making sure they're doing OK and understanding why they're so rare,” she says. “And if the main reason they're so rare is because of what we're doing — namely, chopping down most of the forest that they used to live in —then we might have to help them if we’re going to keep them around.”

Neither of the two species being studied is crucial in the development of life-saving medicines and both also grow in the United States. That doesn’t mean their extinction from Canada wouldn’t be a loss.

Dr. Jenny McCune is surrounded by wood-poppy plants in the ULethbridge greenhouse.

“It would reduce the amazing diversity of different life forms that we have in this country,” says McCune, adding it’s important to appreciate the plants as unique outcomes of evolution which deserve equal rights to exist.

As a graduate student, she attended a workshop on the importance of communicating one’s research to the public. With that in mind, McCune decided to shoot some video with a GoPro camera while she and her crew were doing field research last summer. Upon returning to ULethbridge, she approached Professor William Smith in the Department of New Media, who put her in contact with Rodrigo Henriquez (BFA - New Media ’20).

With an interest in science and conservation, he was happy to put the skills he had learned in the classroom to the test. Henriquez, who just finished his first year towards a master’s, thoroughly enjoyed editing the raw video and working with McCune on the voice-over to produce a short documentary easily digestible by the public.

“The opportunity to do this type of documentary doesn’t come up very often. And since I am an academic and I do love that type of stuff, being able to use my talents and abilities to help out was just icing on the cake,” says the co-founder of Starset Media, adding he’d welcome more work along those same lines.

The Quiet Green Creatures also provides interested students with a real-life glimpse of research work in the field. McCune says it was an added bonus that the enthusiasm of doctoral students Emma Neigel and Amy Wiedenfeld, and undergraduates Carisa McGale and Kirsty McFadyen shines through in the video.

Student-researchers and project partners in the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Nature Conservancy of Canada, the Wilder Institute and the Kayanase plant nursery are vital to McCune’s work.

Wood-poppy plants, grown by research partners in Ontario, are readied for transplanting. Photo by Allison Scovil, Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo.

McCune and her students are studying the wood poppy and crooked-stem aster in forest land fragmented by a growing number of crop fields and subdivisions. They are trying to determine why the plants are so rare, the habitat they require to survive and thrive, and whether they are candidates for conservation translocation – the practice of introducing plants in new habitats on protected land to safeguard their sustainability.

While conservation translocation has proven successful in Canada with animals, such as the reintroduction of the swift fox population in Alberta and Saskatchewan, the practice doesn’t have the same history here when it comes to plants. McCune’s research could assist in determining its viability.

Writers rewarded with 2015 Plays and Prose prizes

trevor.kenney — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 21:19:56 +0000

Thanks to a generous ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge alumnus, undergraduate students have the opportunity to flex their creative-writing muscles, win cash, earn recognition, and have their work presented in a public reading on Thursday, Mar. 26 at 7 p.m. in the David Spinks Theatre.

The 2015 winners, including top row from left to right are Garrett Bishoff, Brayden Haidenger and AJ Baragar. Bottom row from left to right are Emma Dering, Blair Yoxall and Rodrigo Henriquez.

Alumnus Terry Whitehead (BA '94), whose aim is to encourage excellence and help develop student writing skills, generously donates $5,000 in prizes each year to the Striking Prose and Play Right Prize competitions. First place winners in both competitions receive a $1,500 prize, second prize is $750 and third is $250, making these some of the most lucrative awards in the country for undergraduate student writing competitions. The competitions are open to all U of L undergraduate students and this year winners came from four different areas – History, English, New Media and Dramatic Arts.

Play Right Prize Winners

History major, Garrett Bishoff earned first place in the Play Right Prize for his play Detritus.

“Of all entries to this competition, this script demonstrated the strongest potential for growth and development. The playwright has playfully interwoven two narratives into a single exploration of fraternal love and loss,” says juror Jamie Dunsdon, Co-Artistic Director of Calgary’s Verb Theatre on behalf of fellow jury members Grant Linneberg, a Calgary based actor, and Dr. Kiki Benzon, U of L English professor.

Lost Dog by Brayden Haidenger, a dramatic arts major, took second place.

“Lost Dog is an avalanche of suburban family drama neatly framed within the search for a lost pet,” says Benzon. “It probes the limits of love in a family struggling to reconcile shared values with individual desires. We were impressed by the juxtaposition of the sitcom comedy setting with the dark subject matter.”

Third place in the Play Right Prize went to Co-Workers by AJ Baragar, also a dramatic arts major. The jury was thrilled to see a comedy in this year's mix of plays. They congratulated the playwright for creating a zany comedy with a surprise ending that was worth the wait. This play has already made it to the stage. In March 2014 it took three awards at the Chinook Regional One Act Festival in Lethbridge (Best Play, Best Original Script, and Best Male Actor) and at the Alberta Provincial One Act Festival last May it won Best Original Script. Co-Workers appears at Club Didi (Lethbridge) March 18-21 and Birds and Stone (Calgary) May 27-30.

Striking Prose Winners

Striking Prose, the short story writing competition, was adjudicated by three faculty members from the U of L Department of English, Dr. Kiki Benzon, Dr. Jay Gamble, and Dr. Wendy Faith.

Fourth-year English major, Emma Dering took first place with An Amiable Correspondence, which the jurors called a ‘Single White Female,’ epistolary for a late-Victorian age.

“This story sets the spine a tingle with one lonely student’s brewing obsession with her governess,” says Gamble. "It ultimately reveals the psychological instability of the young protagonist.”

Second place went to Blair Yoxall, also an English major, for Raymond’s Comet, which offers a witty and funny merging of the superhero and the literary in a hyper-real local setting.

“Mayor Nenshi even makes a cameo appearance,” says Gamble.

Third prize for the Striking Prose competition was won by Topnew media major Rodrigo Henriquez for Icarus, a story of the earth’s impending destruction told from multiple perspectives in a sinister science fiction mode.

UNews - Rodrigo Henriquez

��Ѹ�����Դ���߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge biologist finds a new tool to help save endangered plant species

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Writers rewarded with 2015 Plays and Prose prizes

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��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge biologist finds a new tool to help save endangered plant species