
Glyphosate Research on forest Organisms and Wildlife health
The GROW Research Team
This research project is dependent upon collaboration between multiple researchers, partner organisations, and our funding agency.
Researchers
The GROW research initiative is a complex, multi-year undertaking, requiring diverse fields of expertise. The coordinating researchers represent the University of Northern British Columbia and the University of British Columbia Okanagan. Together, they will supervise multiple graduate students who will join the team to complete Master's and Doctoral degrees while carrying out the various objectives of the GROW project.

Dr. Lisa Wood
Associate Professor, UNBC
Dr. Wood is an applied plant biologist and dendroclimatologist exploring influences of human induced stress on forested plant communities. Her current focus is directed at elucidating the impacts of chemical herbicides on non-target vegetation populations in the boreal and sub-boreal forests of Canada.

Dr. Deanna Gibson
Associate Professor, UBCO
Dr. Gibson is an expert in microbiomics and intestinal immunity in mammals. Through her lab, the Center for Microbiome and Inflammatory Disease Research, her research focuses on gut health with the aim of advancing knowledge of gut microbiome impacts on metabolism and immunity. Recently, she has focused on how herbicides alter the gut microbiome.

Dr. Miranda Hart
Professor, UBCO
Dr. Hart studies the ecology of soil microbes and the role of microbes in sustainable agriculture and ecological restoration. She will provide training on soil biodiversity assessment, including molecular approaches, and will measure the effect of glyphosate residues on soil community diversity, and metabolism and processes including mutualism integrity, decomposition, and nutrient cycling in soils.

Dr. Heather Bryan
Associate Professor, UNBC
Dr. Bryan is a wildlife ecologist and conservation scientist with research interests in wildlife health, predator-prey interactions, conservation physiology, disease ecology, and community-engaged research. Her research use bioindicators of individual health (e.g. parasites, hormones, immune function) to better understand the effects of potential stressors on wildlife populations.

Dr. Jeffrey Werner
Adjunct Professor, UNBC
Wildlife Ecologist, BC Government
Dr. Werner's research focuses on links between resource extraction and population dynamics of boreal vertebrates, and his extensive experience working with mammals includes field sampling mark & recapture. Working with government agencies and NGOs, he's been instrumental in the development and implementation of policies promoting environmental protection and sustainable resource management.

Dr. Susan Murch
Professor & Department Head, UBCO
Dr. Murch uses analytical chemistry, mass spectrometry, biotechnology, metabolomics, and hormonomics approaches to study the chemistry of plants (including plant metabolites, plant signalling compounds, and plant growth regulators) and their effects on human health. For this project, she will develop and validate methods to accurately detect and quantify glyphosate in environmental samples.

Dr. Laura Grieneisen
Assistant Professor, ODU
Dr. Grieneisen conducts groundbreaking research on host-microbiome interactions in wild systems and microbial ecology. Her research uses wild animal systems to pioneer our understanding the gut microbiome, and its affects on host health. She is focused on how the microbiome is temporally dynamic and the forces that shape it over time.

Dezene Huber
Professor, UNBC
Dr. Huber’s conducts research on arthropod ecology and biodiversity, focusing on forest, agricultural, and aquatic entomology, as well as chemical ecology of insects and plants. Current projects include spruce beetle genomics, tree defences against insects, aquatic insect biodiversity, pollination ecology, and urban arthropod biodiversity.

Ryland Giebelhaus
Assistant Professor, UVic
Dr. Giebelhaus is a chemist with expertise in analytical chemistry, metabolomics (detecting and identifying small molecule metabolites in biological samples), multidimensional chromatography, mass spectrometry, chemometrics, and data science. For this project, he is developing and validating methods to accurately detect and quantify glyphosate and its metabolites in environmental samples. Samples collected through the GROW project will then be analyzed in his lab.
Partner Organisations
​The organisations partnering with the researchers at UNBC and UBCO: the Swan River First Nation, the Lheidli T'enneh First Nation, the BC Wildlife Federation, and the BC and Alberta Trappers Associations, use the land to obtain food and medicines, and to recreate. Members of each organisation will contribute to the project in a unique way, including sample collection and in-kind donations.
The results generated by the research team will provide an improved understanding of glyphosate residues in forests and their effects on wildlife health. The partner organisations may use this information to advocate for updates to policy, where warranted, and to develop and guide future land use planning, which may lead to changes in Provincial land use policies and/or in Federal recommendations for glyphosate use in forests.

Project Funding
This project is generously funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).







