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 fiancé 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

María 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.

 

 

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