Innovative and Transformative Science (Previously Partnership Fund)

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) provided $521,049 via the Partnership Fund to Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) to support three pilot projects. ONC is developing and managing the VENUS and NEPTUNE observatories, which support multi-disciplinary research into coastal and deep ocean environments aimed at increasing knowledge of ocean processes and their global scale impacts.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Kate Morin

Fisheries and Oceans Canada is supporting this science collaboration with $160,600 in funds over two years via the Partnership Fund. This collaboration between the B.C.-based First Nations Fisheries Council and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) achieved their first year goals.

Principal investigator(s): n/a

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $100,000 from the Partnership Fund to support the International Year of the Salmon (IYS). Canada is a member of the both international inter-governmental salmon organizations organizing the IYS: the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission (NPAFC) and the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO).

Principal investigator(s): n/a

Fisheries and Oceans Canada is providing $382,400 over two years via the Partnership Fund to this project by the Fraser Basin Council and the Pacific Fisheries Monitoring and Compliance Panel, an independent collaborative of First Nations, recreational, commercial fishing, environmental and the public at large representatives formed out of the "Integrated Salmon Dialogue Forum" process.

Principal investigator(s): n/a

Fisheries and Oceans Canada is providing $461,000 via the Partnership Fund for this multi-year project led by Dr. Tom Carruthers at the University of British Columbia, for the customization of the Data-Limited Toolkit ("DLMtool") software to address a stock assessment gap identified in the 2016 Report of Canada's Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development (CESD).

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Tom Carruthers

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $50,000 from the Partnership Fund to help establish the Foundation for Long-Term Curation and Management of Historical and Unique Biological Collections. Biological collections are the libraries of life, providing scientists with a way to record and store samples of living organisms for research. Such collections form a critical foundation for wide-ranging research on the oceans and marine life, which are increasingly important in the face of climate change and rapidly changing ecosystems.

Principal investigator(s): Claire Goodwin

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $50,000 via the Partnership Fund to support this project by the Applied Geomatics Research Group (AGRG) at Nova Scotia Community College. In the relatively shallow, turbid waters of temperate estuarine ecosystems, conventional remote sensing tools have difficulty measuring physical and biological features that are of ecological significance at bay-scale.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Tim Webster

Fisheries and Oceans Canada is providing $202,541 in funding through the Partnership Fund to the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), the research branch of the Université du Québec, for this project on water temperature and the geographical distribution of Atlantic salmon.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Normand Bergeron, Dr. André St-Hilaire

Fisheries and Oceans Canada is providing funding via the Partnership Fund in the amount of $171,200 for the Atlantic Salmon Research Joint Venture and is funding research by Jonathan Carr of the Atlantic Salmon Federation. The joint venture is focused on the sustainability of Atlantic Salmon in the face of climate change.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Jonathan Carr

Fisheries and Oceans Canada is investing $1,400,902 in funding over four years via the Partnership Fund for Atlantic Salmon Tomorrow (CAST), for research to assess factors in the decline of at-risk Atlantic salmon populations, with initial focus on the salmon of New Brunswick's Miramichi River. CAST Phase One has three components, led by Drs T. Linnansaari and A. Curry of the Canadian Rivers Institute, University of New Brunswick (UNB) and Dr. L. Bernatchez, Université de Laval.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. T. Linnansaari, Dr. A. Curry, (UNB) Dr. L. Bernatchez, (Laval)

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $37,500 in funding via the Partnership Fund for this project by a research team led by Dr. Jeff Hutchings at Dalhousie University.  They will model life cycle risks to North American Atlantic salmon populations now experiencing high levels of natural mortality to learn more about how to develop mitigation strategies. Extraordinary losses occur in the estuarine and marine environment but the causes, locations, and timing of the various sources of mortality and stage in the life history are largely unknown.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Jeff Hutchings

Fisheries and Oceans Canada's Partnership Fund provided $86,250 to the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) under Dr. Fred Whoriskey at Dalhousie University for the development and testing of new acoustic telemetry technology.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Fred Whoriskey

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) has acoustically tagged 450 Walleye fish in the Lake Winnipeg Basin and are using an array of receivers to track ecosystem-scale movements. Via the Partnership Fund, Fisheries and Oceans Canada is providing $438,765 to support researchers at the University of Manitoba who bring expertise and resources in metabolic stress, genomics, population modelling and spatial analysis to enhance the outcomes of the fish telemetry research, and the combined project represents a major advance to Canadian fisheries science.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Jason Treberg, Dr. Kenneth Jeffries, Dr. Darren Gillis, University of Manitoba

Fisheries and Oceans Canada  provided $121,900 via the Partnership Fund to researchers led by Dr. Murdoch McAllister at the Institute of Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia to further develop Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) for fisheries management in Canada.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Murdoch McAllister

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $453,410 to the Interdisciplinary Centre for the Development of Ocean Mapping (CIDCO) via the Partnership fund for this two year project to advance the charting of remote areas of Canada.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Nicolas Seube

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $200,000 via the Partnership Fund to Students on Ice Foundation in support of the science work under Dr. Mark Graham on the C3 Voyage which honoured the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation during summer 2017. The epic C3 mission was a 23,000 km journey from Toronto to Victoria, via the Northwest Passage

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Mark Graham

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $79,920 via the Partnership Fund to a research team led by Dr. Jackie Dawson at the University of Ottawa for a project that engages Arctic youth in mapping data collection to inform management of shipping near coastal communities. Shipping trends in Nunavik and Nunatsiavut from 1990 to 2015 have been analysed to identify traffic densities around case study communities. Youth in Salluit, Nunavik and Nain will be trained in mapping and geographic information systems (GIS) to identify local travel routes; harvesting areas; traditional knowledge of marine hazards; distribution of wildlife; and management recommendations (i.e. no-go and slow-go zones, no anchoring areas,) and this data will help identify Culturally Significant Marine Areas (CSMAs).

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Jackie Dawson

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $79,914 via the Partnership Fund to the OceanWise Conservation Association for this project enabling Arctic youth in Pond Inlet and Salliut to be the bridge between their communities' traditional knowledge and research on aquatic invasive species. Ships providing transport for mines near the communities are possible sources of aquatic invasive species.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Eric Solomon

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $86, 249 via the Partnership Fund to Oceana Canada for this research and science outreach expedition in the Gulf of St. Lawrence led by Dr. Robert Rangeley and a team of researchers and marine science outreach experts, notably, Alexandra Cousteau. Oceana is an independent ocean conservation and education organization committed to finding ways to conserve, restore and increase biodiversity and species abundance in Canada's oceans through science-based fisheries management.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Robert Rangeley

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $57,500 via the Partnership Fund to this project in Lake Melville, Labrador.  Atlantic Salmon from Lake Melville, Labrador (a marine estuary) are a genetically distinct population.  There are three types of fisheries currently harvesting the stock: the aboriginal fishery of the Innu of Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut, Labrador residents and recreational, but there is no monitoring of the river populations contributing to the fisheries and little knowledge of their movements and survival.

Principal investigator(s): Todd Broomfield

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided approximately $210,000 via the Partnership Fund to this collaborative project of the Government of Nunavut and Amec Foster Wheeler for this eDNA research involving aboriginal, national, and international collaborators. Analysing water for DNA traces shed by fish is a new approach to assessing fish populations.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Alexandra Eaves

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $59,000 via the Partnership Fund over two years to Memorial University's Department of Ocean Sciences to support this research project by Dr. Christopher Parrish, an expert in techniques to measure the energy values in food webs. Environmental change is impacting key forage species in the Northwest Atlantic food web.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Christopher Parrish

Fisheries and Oceans Canada is providing the Aquarium du Québec with $116,000 to ensure the continuance of their over 55 years of data on fish species in the St. Lawrence Estuary. The inventory provides valuable baseline data that enables researchers to study the impacts that seasonal changes, climate change, invasive species and pollution can have on the species that live in the St. Lawrence Estuary.

Principal investigator(s): Jill Marvin

Recent stock assessments show a resurgence of groundfish in the Estuary and Northern Gulf of St. Lawrence, most notably, redfish. Via the Partnership Fund, Fisheries and Oceans provided $563,500 over two years to a research team under the lead of Dr. Céline Audet at the Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR). Their goal is to learn more about the composition of the resurging groundfish resources and to understand potential impacts to commercially exploited cold-water crustaceans in the area.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Céline Audet

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $496,838 via the Partnership Fund to support this research network formed by the University of Quebec at Rimouski (UQAR) to track eutrophication in the St. Lawrence region through to 2020, using testing and computer modeling.

Principal investigator(s): Jean-Éric Tremblay

Fisheries and Oceans Canada contributed $150,000 from its Partnership Fund to the St. Lawrence Global Observatory (SLGO) for the development of a new information infrastructure. The St. Lawrence Global Observatory integrates and disseminates data and information on oceans and freshwater resources to a wide range of users, with a focus on the St. Lawrence ecosystem from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Claude Tremblay

In October 2017, more than 20 nations, 300 business entrepreneurs, political leaders, and ocean ambassadors will gather in Rimouski, Quebec, for the 8th BioMarine International Business Convention—BioMarine Rimouski 2017.

Principal investigator(s): Martin Beaulieu

In accordance with the Oceans Act and the international Galway Agreement between Canada, the U.S.A. and the European Union, Fisheries and Oceans is engaged in enhancing ocean literacy and promoting public understanding of the oceans throughout Canada. To this end, Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $250,000 via the Partnership Fund towards the development of Ocean School by Dalhousie University and the National Film Board of Canada.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Boris Worm

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $161,000 via the Partnership Fund over two years to the Ecology Action Centre for this project on sea level rise. Climate change related sea level rise combined with increased development pressure poses risks to coastal communities in Atlantic and Pacific Canada. Over the past five years, Fisheries and Oceans Canada scientists have developed climate change adaptation tools including the Canadian Extreme Water Level Adaptation Tool (CAN-EWLAT), which provides sea level rise projections for Canada's coastline over the coming century and advice on how much higher to build coastal infrastructure to accommodate the projected rise.

Principal investigator(s): Mark Butler

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $90,000 via the Partnership Fund for this research focused on coastal acidification. Each year, about one-third of annual carbon dioxide emissions from human activities dissolves in the oceans' surface and reacts with water molecules to produce carbonic acid. As a result, the concentration of carbonic acid has increased by 30 percent since the industrial revolution, a process known as ocean acidification (OA).

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Karen Kohfeld

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $667,047 via the Partnership Fund over three years to Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) for this collaboration in benthic (seabed) habitat mapping – an Atlantic Ocean research priority set by the joint Canada-U.S.A-European Union "Galway Statement". High resolution maps revealing the complexities of the seabed environment are being made possible by developments in the field of acoustic remote sensing, such as multi-beam echo-sounders (MBES) combined with seabed observation using video, stills, and physical grab samples.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Craig J. Brown

Fisheries and Oceans Canada is providing approximately $600,000 to Atlantic salmon scientific and conservation experts to enhance our collective understanding of Atlantic salmon and to ultimately support their long-term recovery on Canada’s East coast.

Principal investigator(s): Jonathan Carr, ASF; R. Allen Curry, UNB; Nassir El-Jabi,(UM); Todd Broomfield, Nunatsiavut

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is contributing $20,000 from its science Partnership Fund to Dalhousie University to develop operational capacity for high-quality, short-term ocean forecasting for coastal and shelf waters in the Gulf of Maine and Scotian Shelf region.

Principal investigator(s): Keith Thompson

Mariculturists must deal with various issues including biofouling of gear and animals at aquaculture sites. In the Magdalen Islands, QC, biofouling organisms such as algae, bivalves, crustaceans, and other invertebrates colonize aquaculture structures.

Principal investigator(s): Estelle Pedneault

How many redfish must there be to sustain the Western Atlantic redfish fishery? Powerful computer tools are being developed to help answer that question. Due to poor recruitment (productivity), the Western Atlantic redfish fishery (unit 1+2) has not recovered since it was closed in 1995.

Principal investigator(s): Murdoch McAllister

Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Partnership Fund is contributing $399,000 to support Vancouver Aquarium’s PollutionTracker program, which will track contaminants released into the ocean that can harm marine organisms and their habitat.

Principal investigator(s): Peter Ross

The Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) is a global network and central database for a growing wealth of spatially referenced data on the diversity, distribution and abundance of marine life around the world.

Principal investigator(s): Andrew Sherin

During their downstream spawning the migration, the American Eel is at high risk of dying due to turbine strikes at hydro stations. This hazard is a major factor impeding the recovery of the species, which is designated as Threatened by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

Principal investigator(s): Steven Cooke

Do fish actually thrive in habitats that humans create? When human activities cause harm to fish that cannot be avoided or mitigated, the Fisheries Act requires that impacts to fish be balanced, or offset, through measures such as replacement or enhancement of spawning habitat.

Principal investigator(s): Stephen Cooke

In 2016, Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $105,110 from the Partnership Fund to scientists at Dalhousie University. Their research aimed at minimizing the transfer of aquatic invasive species through ballast water.

Principal investigator(s): Stan Matwin

Fisheries and Oceans Canada funded $50,000 from the Partnership Fund in 2016 to the Government of Nunavut’s Department of the Environment to conduct this food-web research. Climate-related changes and warming are altering the physical, chemical, and biological structure (food webs) of the Arctic Ocean.

Principal investigator(s): Janelle Kennedy

In 2016, Fisheries and Oceans Canada funded $55,000 from the Partnership Fund to the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources for this research to better understand and manage whale populations in Baffin Bay.

Principal investigator(s): Fernando Ugarte, Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $51,750 from the Partnership Fund in 2016 to Dr. Noel Cadigan at the Marine Institute of the Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) - Centre for Fisheries Ecosystem Research (CFER).

Principal investigator(s): Noel Cadigan

The introduction of aquatic invasive species (AIS) from one part of the world to another has far-reaching ecological, economic, and social consequences. Also known as non-indigenous species, AIS can out-compete native species and cause fisheries to collapse.

Principal investigator(s): Graeme Inglis

In 2016, Fisheries and Oceans Canada funded $25,000 to the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) to support the preservation and custodianship of an extraordinary archive of biological samples collected from marine debris associated with the 2011 Japanese Tsunami – a giant sea wave that reached heights of up to 40.5 metres.

Principal investigator(s): Alexander Bychkov

The Northern Shrimp Research Foundation received $25,000 from Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Partnership Fund in 2016 to support the research of shrimp expert, Dr. Raouf Kilada. Dr. Kilada looks shrimp in the eye to learn their age.

Principal investigator(s): Raouf Kilada

The Nova Scotia Community College received $104,650 in 2016 from the Fisheries and Oceans Canada Partnership Fund in support of research led by Dr. Craig Brown. Many different types of marine research rely on hydrographic information.

Principal investigator(s): Craig Brown

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $24,432 from the Partnership Fund in 2016 to support a diagnostic testing initiative by the United States Geological Survey, Western Fisheries Research Center. Under Canada’s Species at Risk Act, Fisheries and Oceans Canada protects listed sturgeon species and Canada and the U.S.A. share responsibility for sturgeon recovery under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Principal investigator(s): Gael Kurath, Eveline Emmenegger and Rachel Breyta

Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $20,700 in funding in 2016 from the Partnership Fund to support the University of Toronto, Scarborough’s efforts in developing a freshwater species at risk research network in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River basin.

Principal investigator(s): Nick Mandrak

Fisheries and Oceans Canada funded $46,548 from the Partnership Fund in 2016 towards this investigative research at the University of Washington. The goal is to determine if piscine orthoreovirus (PRV) impacts salmon health and leads (or contributes) to heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI) and erythrocytic inclusion body syndrome (EIBS) in salmon.

Principal investigator(s): Kerry Naish

In 2017, Fisheries and Oceans Canada provided $40,000 via the Science Partnership Fund to support public engagement in a major science and technology software coding event, Fishackathon 2018, the world's largest environmentally-themed hackathon competition.

Principal investigator(s): Colombe Nadeau-O’Shea

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is working collaboratively with the Ecology Action Centre (EAC) to build a nation-wide program focused on educating coastal communities about sea-level rise (SLR) and the importance of incorporating SLR into future planning strategies; providing $200,000 in support of the initiative over a period of three years.

Principal investigator(s): Carla Vandenberg

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) provided $51,950 in 2016-17 via the Partnership Fund to Dr. Peter Ross and a team of researchers at the Vancouver Aquarium, towards a project that examines the role that textile fibres play in marine microplastic pollution.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Peter Ross, Andrew Day

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is providing $83,999, via the Partnership Fund, to learn more about the effectiveness of captive breeding programs at achieving conservation targets for freshwater species-at-risk (SAR) fish and mussels.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Steven Cooke

Via the Partnership Fund, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) provided $138,961 over three years to support this species-at-risk research by Dr. David Zanatta. In the past decade, understanding of the genetic considerations for captive breeding of species-at-risk freshwater mussels, and knowledge of the genetic structure and diversity of mussels, has advanced considerably.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. David Zanatta

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), via the Partnership Fund is collaborating with Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) on the creation of a fund to support graduate research in fisheries science. MUN created three new research-based graduate programs at the Fisheries and Marine Institute: M.Sc, Fisheries Science (Fisheries Science and Technology); M.Sc, Fisheries Science (Stock Assessment) and Ph.D, Fisheries Science.

Principal investigator(s): Kimberly Thornhill

The International Year of the Salmon (IYS), despite the name, is a multi-year scientific research and outreach initiative. Canada is a member of both the international inter-governmental salmon organizations organizing the IYS: the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission (NPAFC) and the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO).

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Vladimir Radchenko, Dr. Peter Hutchinson

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) provided $60,000 over two years via the Partnership Fund to the University of British Columbia and the B.C. Ministry of the Environment to support this project focused on conservation and recovery of the endangered Salish Sucker species.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Jordan Rosenfeld

Via the partnership fund, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) has invested $257,517 over three years in projects at the University of Guelph related to species-at-risk science. These projects, led by Dr. Josef Daniel Ackerman at the University of Guelph’s Department of Integrative Biology, focus on Great Lakes area freshwater, at-risk species of mussels.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Josef Daniel Ackerman

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) provided $520,000 over two years via the Partnership Fund to the University of Victoria, where Dr. Jody Klymak leads the large Canadian Pacific Robotic Ocean Observing Facility (C-PROOF) initiative.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Jody Klymak

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is supporting two projects by researchers at the University of Waterloo’s Department of Biology. The first project will assess temperature variability and threats of species which are listed under Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA). The second project will assess the feeding and thermal ecology of SARA-listed species in the coastal wetlands of Lake Erie.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Kim Cuddington, Dr. Michael Power

To improve processes regarding scientific population assessment and recovery strategies for small fish species identified as at-risk under Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA), Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) provided $ 135,725 over three years to this project via the Partnership Fund.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Trevor Pitcher

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) provided $660 000 in funding via the partnership fund to this project led by Frederick Whoriskey, Associate Professor at Dalhousie University and Executive Director of the Ocean Tracking Network.

Principal investigator(s): Frederick Gilbert Whoriskey

Via the partnership fund, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) provided $186,415 in funding to McGill University. In the first project, Researchers will determine the impact of two stressors on species of at-risk fish: 1) how competition with invasive species for the same food source affects species of at-risk benthic fish and 2) how temperature changes, or climate change, might modify their response to this stressor. The second project will quantify the independent and interactive effects of hypoxia and elevated water temperatures on Pugnose Shiner, Channel Darter, and Easter Sand Darter.

Principal investigator(s): Professor Lauren Chapman, Professor Anthony Ricciardi

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) provided $27,600 in funding through the partnership fund to Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières for their project on responses of species at risk to environmental stressors.

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Marco A. Rodríguez

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) provided $141,708 in funding through the partnership fund to the University of Alberta for a project that examines how changes to water levels in Milk River, a river in southern Alberta, affects the suitability of this habitat for Mountain Sucker, a species listed as Threatened by COSEWIC (Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada).

Principal investigator(s): Dr. Mark Poesch

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) provided $96,850.00 in funding through the partnership fund to the University of Toronto for two projects: (1) to create models with co-occurring taxa to predict areas suitable for Species at Risk reintroductions; and, (2) to determine thermal stress thresholds of imperiled cyprinids.

Principal investigators: Dr. Don Jackson, Dr. Nicholas Mandrak