Faculty

In the genetics courses that I teach, I focus on evidence-based strategies and student-centred design—clear explanations and expectations, problem-based exercises, and real-world examples from medicine and evolution. Ultimately, my goal is to stoke curiosity, improve confidence, and support the development of transferable skills for life after undergrad.

I am a quantitative ecologist and evolutionary biologist. I am interested in the ecology and evolution of host-pathogen interactions, including the evolution of virulence; spatial population dynamics, including plant competition and animal movement; and general statistical methods for ecology and evolution. I have worked with data from historical records and from empirical collaborators from a large variety of biological systems – for example seed dispersal by bluebirds, movement of black bears and panthers in Florida, and evolution of virulence in HIV. I focus on developing theoretical models that can be empirically tested, as well as statistical models that can be interpreted in mechanistic terms.

Plants like animals defend themselves from disease and sometimes succumb to microbial disease. My research group is interested in understanding the molecular genetic and biochemical mechanisms of plant immunity. Our long-term goal is to translate our plant immunity knowledge to reduce crop loss and pesticide use in agriculture. After many years of challenging research, my team demonstrated that DIR1 proteins move via the phloem from an initially infected leaf to distant leaves to participate in alerting/priming distant leaves to respond in a resistant manner to future microbial infections. Knowing that DIR1 is a key protein involved in inter-organ communication to initiate resistance, will allow us to dissect the priming response in distant leaves. We are using this knowledge to find environmentally friendly chemical treatments that initiate natural plant defense to provide pesticide-free methods to protect Ontario greenhouse-grown cucumbers and tomatoes from disease. We also study the Age-Related Resistance response in which plants become highly resistant to normally virulent pathogens as they mature. What molecular changes allow a mature plant to perceive and effectively defend against normally virulent pathogens, is another fascinating question we are investigating. As an instructor my goals include convincing students/future citizens that contrary to popular opinion, plants are fascinating and incredibly important for people and the planet. As a mentor to undergraduate and graduate students, I facilitate their growth as scientists and people. I encourage them to improve in areas they find challenging by reminding them it takes time, but it’s worth it.

Dr. Chow-Fraser is no longer considering applications for graduate positions.

I conduct research on the ecology, conservation and management of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems in the Great Lakes basin. A primary goal is to develop simple ecological indicators to track impacts of human activities on the long-term health of target ecosystems; these have involved citizen scientists, especially high school students and indigenous youth. Our projects involve extensive sampling in streams, lakes, vernal pools, boreal forests, and coastal marshes throughout Ontario, collecting information on planktonic and benthic algae, zooplankton, macro-invertebrates, aquatic macrophytes, wetland fish and birds, amphibians, and/or turtles. We also use satellite information to assess land-use alterations and shoreline development on wetland connectivity and quality, and to map habitat loss from colonization of invasive Phragmites australis. Working continuously in Georgian Bay (GB) since 2003, we have created one of the largest and most comprehensive databases on coastal wetlands of eastern and northern GB. We have modelled the effect of water level on marsh zonation in GB, and how human activities (particularly associated with agricultural and urban/recreational development) can affect nutrient status in embayments, wetlands and streams. My students also use remote sensing, geographic information systems, and radio-telemetry to determine how at-risk freshwater turtles use their habitats, information that is used to find the best options to protect and conserve connecting corridors and critical habitat. Recently, we have begun to examine how recovery of boreal forests from wildfire outbreaks are affected by proximity to water bodies and human features and activities.

My research program focuses on the effects of anthropogenic stressors on avian wildlife and other predators to monitor broad-scale environmental change. My lab conducts field research in temperate and Arctic ecosystems to examine the impacts of climate change on avian fitness via (1) the indirect effects of environmental variation on (1) prey type, quality, and quantity; and (2) energetics and behaviour; (3) the direct effects of warming temperatures on physiological traits associated with heat stress; and (4) the cumulative effects of multiple stressors including contaminants.

My primary research interests focus on the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate various systemic processes within model organisms. Not only is this important to best understand the function of animal physiology, but it also sheds light on analogous regulatory mechanisms that can be translated to human systems. Much of this research has included work on insect model organisms to better understand digestive, cardiac, neural, immune and reproductive processes. In particular, I have identified various regulating proteins and signaling cascades that control cellular machinery and are vital to maximize overall systemic physiology. It is my passion for asking “how” and “why” things happen that I pass on to my students every day. My pedagogical approaches are framed around training students to be leaders in translating interdisciplinary scientific applications to the real world. I have collaboratively established undergraduate research-focused projects (The Stink Bug Project, BioBlend Project, Horizontal Curriculum Integration Project), applied undergraduate laboratory and research facilities (ALLURE lab, Undergraduate Cell Biology Lab, Living Systems Lab) and have engaged students in translating the science they learn beyond the walls of the classroom through the use of social media and emerging technologies including Blended Learning. All of my wet-lab and pedagogical research projects are highly collaborative with teams of students. As a Distinguished MacPherson Institute Leadership in Teaching and Learning (LTL) Fellow, I look forward to continuing to collaborate with other faculty across McMaster University and beyond on additional projects that can ultimately improve the education that students attain in our classrooms.

Recent advances in Next Generation Sequencing technologies and the subsequent rise in microbiome research has shown that symbiotic microbes are ubiquitous and play vital functions that impact host health; yet we lack a general understanding of how microbes evolve, and what impacts such evolution has on the host. The Batstone Lab combines quantitative genetics, bioinformatics, and mutualism theory to study how mutualistic microbes adapt to hosts, to understand how changing abiotic conditions modulate such adaptation, and to identify the genomic mechanisms underlying symbiosis evolution.

Plant interactions with other plants My current research focuses on plant communication and behaviour, including plant kin recognition. Plants live in highly social environments, and they do behave, though very slowly. Plants sense the presence of other plants, and then respond, usually by producing a more competitive phenotype. Responses to cues of neighbours are thus important in competition. My lab has worked on plant responses to aboveground cues, the presence/absence of belowground neighbours, and the relatedness of belowground neighbours. We collaborate with Dr. Harsh Bais, University of Delaware, on research into the underlying mechanisms for responses to relatives. Adaptation to abiotic stresses My research program on the evolution of plant carbon acquisition traits has included studies that integrate the physiological ecology of drought stress with the natural selection on drought stress traits, and genetic differentiation between populations from environments differing in water availability. A former student, Laura Beaton developed a research program on adaptation of plants to roadside stresses, including salinity and manganese. I collaborate with Dr. Lisa Donovan, University of Georgia, in understanding how plant physiological traits evolve under stress.

I am a theoretical biologist with a wide variety of interests, but my primary focus is the evolution and spread of infectious diseases, with a particular interest in human health. Diseases that the lab works on include HIV, syphilis, canine rabies, and Ebola. We use theoretical, statistical and computational approaches to understanding disease data, with a particular focus on methods that combine dynamical mechanism with statistical inference.

https://mac-theobio.github.io/dushoff.html

At one level, evolution is remarkably simple, with just a few concepts (mutation, recombination, random drift and natural selection) that underlie the overall process. Yet this description obscures many issues that make evolution a fascinating area for study. Evolution typically involves many genes and often revolves around interactions between individuals and their environments. Moreover, genes interact with one another and with the environment in a nonlinear fashion, resulting in complex phenotypes and evolutionary dynamics. My work aims to describe and analyze such interactions with experimental and quantitative rigor. Specifically work in my lab aims to address the fundamental question about the mechanistic basis of observed phenotypic variation. That is, how genetic (and environmental) variation modulate developmental processes and ultimately influence phenotypic outcomes. My research employs genetic and genomic approaches to address these issues, largely using Drosophila (fruit flies) as a model system. Most labs that work with Drosophila study either individual mutations of large effect (such as those that completely knock out a particular function) or subtle quantitative variation (rarely identifying specific genes). We employ both of these empirical approaches in conjunction with our genomic analyses to help relate our understanding from developmental genetics with the natural variation observed in populations.