🚨 ONE DAY LEFT! 🚨
Meet Dr. Jeannine Cavender-Bares, our #Atwood2026 Memorial Lecturer! 🌿🛰️🌳
Learn more about their work here: https://cavenderlab.oeb.harvard.edu/
Atwood schedule: https://eeb.utoronto.ca/events/atwood-colloquium-in-ecology-evolution-2/
Congratulations to two EEB staff members for being honoured with 2026 Dean's Outstanding Staff Awards from @uoftartsci !
Tom Gludovacz, @uoft.growthfacilities chief horticulturalist, received the Dean’s Outstanding Technical Service Award.
Susan Debreceni, program lead, Volunteer Engagement and Community Programs, @uofttrashteam was awarded the Dean’s Student Life Award.
The awards recognize in both the essential nature of their work and commitment to the successful functioning of their teams. Beyond exceptional professionalism, innovation, and teamwork, the awards also speak to the positive impact both have on the morale of their colleagues, collaborators, and beyond.
A huge congrats to both!
The 2026 Atwood Colloquium is just a week away! Two days full of the latest & most exciting research in ecology & evolutionary biology await. Let us introduce this year's three invited external speakers:
Atwood Senior Lecturer: JEANNINE CAVENDER-BARES is Climate Action Acceleration Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, director of the Harvard University Herbaria, and chair of the Harvard Forest Leadership Committee.
Her lecture is titled "Forest Resilience and Adaptive Capacity in an Era of Rapid Global Change: Insights from Experiments and Observations of a Model Clade."
Rising Star in Ecology: LAURA MELISSA GUZMAN is assistant professor in the Department of Entomology at Cornell University.
Her talk is titled "Leveraging Big Biodiversity Data to Understand Pollinator Trends and Inform Conservation Solutions"
Rising Star in Evolution: JAMES STROUD is assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
His lecture is titled "Evolutionary Insights from a Long-Term Study of Natural Selection."
We can’t wait to see you! 🌳🐝🦎
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as one of the major challenges to modern medicine and healthcare globally. Across the globe, millions of people every year lose their lives because extant antibiotic drugs increasingly encounter the evolution of resistance in their target pathogens.
Reasons are nuanced, but researchers agree that the mis- and overuse of antibiotics in healthcare and agriculture have contributed. Paired with the slowed pace in recent decades of antibiotic discovery—finding or synthesizing safe and effective new drugs—this growing resistance has encouraged greater creativity in the search for solutions among scientists.
One of the solutions proffered by scientists at the University of Toronto and beyond to what EEB's Nicole Mideo calls "at base an evolutionary problem" is phage therapy.
It was the subject of the 2026 Martin Lecture in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, given by Paul Turner (Yale) and titled "Leveraging Evolutionary Trade-Offs in the Development pf Phage Therapy."
Turner's research examines viruses as malleable agents in evolving bacterial systems and the impact of those interactions on infectious disease and antibiotic resistance. In his work, phages--types of viruses that specifically infect and destroy bacteria and that are also the most abundant natural entities on Earth--do not act simply as agents of disease. They are elements of evolving systems that can be studied, anticipated, and "steered" based on evolutionary principles.
Why? Because evolving resistance does not come without a cost to bacteria: rather than simply being a barrier, it forms part of a trade-off researchers can exploit. Inevitable processes of evolution thus become part of a therapeutic solution in the treatment of disease.
As Turner, Mideo, Greg German of @uoft_lmp and Arjumand Siddiqi of @uoft_dlsph highlighted after the talk, much more work lies ahead before the life-saving potential of phage therapy can equitably and cost-effectively reach communities around the world who need it most.
Read details about phage therapy's opportunities and challenges at uoft.me/PhageTherapy2026MartinLecture
Mark your calendars! Like the department itself, our two-day Atwood Colloquium turns 20 this year!
Join us for this fantastic opportunity to learn about the latest research in ecology & evolutionary biology at U of T and beyond and get the chance to meet the people behind it all.
Our featured speakers this year:
* Jeannine Cavender-Bares (Harvard)--Atwood Lecturer
* Laura Melissa Guzman (Cornell)--Rising Star in Ecology
* James Stroud (Georgia Tech)--Rising Star in Evolutionary Biology
🗓️ April 23 & April 24, 2026, Koffler House
🦎🌺🦇🌱🐍🌳🪲
More details at uoft.me/Atwood2026
Beautiful poster artwork by Martin Henry, Michelle Liu, & Youngseo Jeong
PhD Candidate Haley Morris recently received a doctoral award from @uoftepic to support her thesis work on developing predictive models about how and which kinds of helminths (parasitic worms) might expand their habitat ranges under conditions of climate change.
Congratulations! 🎉
We asked her about her research, how she came to it, what the award means for her work, and what you might find her doing when she's not thinking about the impact of a warming climate on parasites. 🪱
Read more at the Newsroom link in bio.
Check out the latest in undergrad research and join EEB498 students as they present their research projects in five categories:
* Community & Ecosystem Ecology
* Evolutionary Ecology
* Evolutionary Genetics & Modelling
* Global Change Ecology
* Evolution & Macroevolution
It’s a great way to learn about scientific discoveries by the next generation of researches, have great conversations, and support your peers!
See you there! 🦠🪰🌸🌱🐦⬛🦎
More at Events link in bio
You may not know her name, but you might have seen her work: Madeleine (Maddy) Milne is the woman behind the plump raccoons populating the the @uofttrashteam outreach materials, especially its much-used theory of change illustration. The cheerful visuals are just one of the many ways in which @mad_milne has lent her talents to a better understanding of plastic pollution and the battle against it. Recently, her dedication earned the EEB alumna (BSc 2022) and U of T Trash Team volunteer a 2025 Arbor Award, the University of Toronto’s highest recognition of volunteer service.
Congratulations! 🥳🎉
Since 2020 as a Bachelor of Science student, Madeleine has volunteered with the U of T Trash Team, which seeks to increase literacy around waste and reduce plastic pollution. As an alumna, Madeleine continues to volunteer, leading and representing the Trash Team at community events across Ontario. This includes delivering engaging presentations, helping to train new volunteers, and even contributing her skills as an illustrator to help explain the group’s work and goals.
Read the whole story at the Newsroom link in bio.
Join us on THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 6:30 PM for the 2026 Martin Lecture with Paul Turner (Yale), titled “Leveraging Evolutionary Trade-Offs in the Development of Phage Therapy”
The talk explores novel approaches to targeting and killing bacterial pathogens, tackling one of the most pressing issues in modern medicine: antibiotic resistance.
Phage therapy offers a possible alternative to antibiotics, but a downside is the ability for target bacteria to evolve phage resistance. This talk explores how interventions can take advantage of such evolutionary ‘trade-offs’ to help clear infections.
The lecture will be followed by a panel discussion with Greg German (UHN/Temerty), Nicole Mideo (EEB), Arjumand Siddiqui (Dalla Lana School of Public Health), and Paul Turner himself on the larger implications medical, ethical, and social of therapies exploiting principles of evolution to treat infectious disease and neurodegenerative disorders, among other things.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Paul Turner is the Rachel Carson Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, the director of the Center for Phage Biology & Therapy at Yale University, and a microbiology faculty member at the Yale School of Medicine He studies evolutionary genetics of viruses, particularly phages that infect bacterial pathogens and RNA viruses transmitted by arthropods, and researches the use of phages to treat antibiotic-resistant bacterial diseases. He also actively engages in science-communication outreach to the general public, and is involved in programs where faculty collaborate with K-12 teachers to improve STEMM education in underserved public schools.
ABOUT THE MARTIN LECTURE
The Martin Lecture series is held annually, welcoming top thinkers and researchers in astronomy and astrophysics, ecology and evolutionary biology, physics, and public policy to the University of Toronto.
With spring migration just beginning, many bird enthusiasts will be thinking about where best to (respectfully) observe their favorite feathered neighbours, whether resident or just passing through. According to a study recently published by Donald Jackson and one of his undergraduate students, @kaylie_borntraeger they might have surprising luck at an unexpected location: stormwater ponds (SWPs).
SWPs are artificial reservoirs dug in residential areas to mitigate flooding by collecting runoff water that would otherwise flow directly from storm sewers into streams. While not intended as natural habitats for wildlife, they have nonetheless become home to insects, amphibians, fish, small mammals, and many species of birds.
To achieve the most accurate survey, Jackson and Borntraeger collected data using audio recorder units left onsite. They then used AI-based software that identified species according to their calls — similar to Merlin, the popular bird-call app used by many birders.
Overall, Jackson and Borntraeger identified 145 species—numbers that show the importance of SWPs as habitats for migratory and resident birds. They also demonstrate their potential as aquatic ecosystems:
“When we transform forested areas for agricultural purposes, and agricultural areas for urban development, we lose streams, ponds, wetlands, wildlife,” says Jackson. “So, when we have stormwater ponds, they help restore some of these lost components of nature.”
But the presence of large numbers of species does not necessarily mean that the current SWPs make for ideal ecosystems. High concentrations of contaminants in and around the ponds can pose a real danger.
It raises the question whether we should manage these ponds to make them less welcoming to wildlife, as some would like. “Or,” asks Borntrager, “should we manage them in such a way that they are better habitats for species?”
Read the whole story at the Newsroom link in bio.
📸 Kaylie Borntraeger
Congratulations to Marie-Josée Fortin for receiving the 2026 Killam Prize for Natural Sciences.
Considered Canada’s most distinguished award for career achievements in research, the Killam Prizes are awarded annually to Canadian scholars who have distinguished themselves through sustained research excellence, making a significant contribution and impact in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, health sciences, and engineering.
Fortin’s research integrates concepts and analytical methodologies from the fields of ecology, geography, and statistics. It has resulted in novel, sophisticated spatial statistics and modeling frameworks that address the spatial complexity of ecological data, having profound impacts both within and beyond the field of ecology.
Her work has transformed how ecologists and environmentalists understand the spatial ecology of species and communities across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. It also offers analytical concepts and tools to measure the impacts of climate change and global changes in biodiversity and biome distributions, leading to evidence-based strategies to mitigate these impacts.
Read more at the Newsroom link in bio.
