Students garner grant from Royal Canadian Geographic Society

A group of Nipissing University Biology students has been awarded a Team Research Grant from the Royal Canadian Geographic Society for their project in Newfoundland’s Gros Morne National Park. The team is made up of students Katie Roberts, Sara Laplante, Kerri Moreau and Emily Gray. They will be studying regeneration failure of Balsam Fir forests in the national park under severe browsing pressure due to the overabundance of moose.Moose are not native to Newfoundland. Following an introduction of four animals from New Brunswick in 1904, there are now over 150,000 moose on the island.  It is estimated that no other place in the world has a greater density of moose.  Wolves, the only significant predator of moose, were wiped off the island in the 1930s and typically, hunting is not permitted in the national park.
The primary winter food of moose is balsam fir, a particularly important tree species in the boreal forests of Newfoundland and Labrador.  The 5,000 moose in the park are estimated to consume 46 million kilograms of twigs per year.  As a result of the explosive growth of the moose population, balsam fir forests are not regenerating; only about 25 per cent of disturbed forests in the park are regenerating successfully.  Forested landscapes that were once dominated by balsam fir are now meadows having dense covers of non-native herbaceous weeds.
The team is supervised by Nipissing Biology professor Dr. Peter Nosko, who has been taking Nipissing students to Newfoundland for the past six years as part of a senior biology field course.  The team that received the research grant participated in last year’s field course and were part of a community service learning project collecting data for Parks Canada.  Building on their previous experience, the team will continue to collect data that could be used by Parks Canada biologists to make important management decisions in their attempt to offset the decline of balsam fir forests.
PHOTO: DR. PETER NOSKO