Opening Reception Keynote
Following the Bison: Western Science and Indigenous Insights into Migration, Hunting, and Human-Animal relations
August 18, 2024 @ 18:00
Royal Saskatchewan Museum
Open to the Public
Dr. Jessica Metcalfe
Jessica Metcalfe has an MA in Biological Anthropology and a PhD in Earth and Environmental Science from the University of Western Ontario. She is currently an associate professor of Anthropology at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Her research focuses on using biogeochemical methods to reconstruct large mammal diets, migration, and human-environment interactions. As a settler anthropologist, she believes she has a responsibility to contribute to restorative justice for Indigenous people in Canada. Her work with Tsattine knowledge-keeper Victoria Wanihadie on the SSHRC-funded ‘Dene Bison Hunting and Migrations’ project is a first step in that direction.
Abstract: Wildlife conservationists and Indigenous leaders are increasingly ‘following bison’ for environmental restoration and cultural resurgence. I began following bison in my research program because of their widespread distribution across much of North America through the last Ice Age. I have used ancient bison bones, teeth, and other tissues to study a range of topics and regions, including bison diets and habitat selection in Alberta and Utah, and interactions between people and bison in Subarctic and Great Basin environments. But beyond leading me to topics of scientific importance, bison have also guided me towards Indigenous principles of relationality and story-work. I draw on these concepts as I describe my research contributions to understanding bison diets, environments, migrations, and human-animal relations, which are embedded within the story of my research journey. Following bison towards Indigenous research means prioritizing relationships with Indigenous peoples and the lands we inhabit. By meaningfully engaging with our shared history, we can contribute to restorative justice while also improving scientific rigour and relevance.
Daily Keynotes
Ancient DNA: Recent Advances and Near Term Prospects from a Canadian Perspective
Dr. Tyler Murchie
Monday, August 19, 8:45-9:30
Tyler J. Murchie is a palaeogenomics research scientist at the Hakai Institute in British Columbia studying palaeoecology in northwestern North America during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. Other ongoing research efforts of his are focused on ancient environmental DNA from the Canadian high arctic, and southern Ontario, with previous research in Mediterranean archaeology, the northern Canadian plains, and subarctic Yukon. Tyler completed his doctorate and post-doctoral research at McMaster University, along with master's and bachelor's degrees in archaeological science at the University of Calgary.
Abstract: The fields of ancient and environmental DNA have progressed rapidly in the last decade. This includes the recovery of ecosystem wide 2-million-year-old sedimentary ancient DNA and whole genome reconstructions from both discrete tissues and environmental samples. This presentation overviews exciting developments in modern environmental DNA research—notably the emerging field of airborne environmental DNA—the state of ancient DNA research today and associated methodologies, and reviews how ancient DNA has contributed to our understandings of Beringian palaeoecology, and where improvements are needed. Highlights from several ongoing (unpublished) ancient environmental DNA projects across Canada are discussed, as is our plan in development to create a Canadian ancient DNA collaborative network.
Deglacial Ice Sheet Dynamics Associated with Abrupt Climatic Change
Dr. Sophie Norris
Tuesday, August 20, 8:30-9:15
Sophie L. Norris is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Victoria. She received her PhD from the University of Alberta and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Dalhousie University. Her research interests combine geochronological and geomorphic methods to study past ice responses to global climatic change throughout the Quaternary period. Most recently, her research has been focused on Western Canada, reconstructing the response of the Laurentide Ice Sheet to rapid warming during the last deglaciation and the impacts the ice sheet had on landscape evolution and global sea level.
Abstract: Accurate reconstructions of the timing, rate, and dynamics of past ice sheet evolution are critical for predicting their response to ongoing and future climatic changes. Within Canada, the deglacial timing of the last North American Ice Sheet complex influenced the evolution of some of the world's largest glacial lakes and controlled the timing of early flora and faunal migration into the Americas. Drawing on a multi-method approach that combines high-resolution geomorphological mapping using newly available LiDAR, radiocarbon and terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide geochronology techniques and numerical modelling methods, this talk will discuss the rapid deglacial evolution of western Canada. Examples that draw on recently published work, as well as several preliminary datasets, will be used to highlight the sensitivity of these past ice sheets to abrupt climate change at the transition from the last glacial to interglacial.
Using paleohydrology to inform water management and constrain climate models
Dr. David Sauchyn
Wednesday, August 21, 8:30-9:15
Dave Sauchyn is Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at the U of R and Director of the Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative. His research interests are variability in prairie hydroclimate over the Common Era, and planned adaption to minimize the adverse impacts of climate change. Dave has given more than 500 invited talks on aspects of climate variability and change. He can trace his prairie roots back to the 1910s when his grandparents arrived from eastern Canada and from Ukraine.
Abstract: The use of instrumental hydrometric data to estimate water supplies and the probability of extreme conditions relies on the critical assumption that observations are stationary over time. The prominent hydrologist Vit Klemes wrote in 1989 “It is of course well known that this assumption is not true in general and that it diverges from reality with the length of the period considered.” Research in paleohydrology highlights this disconnect between reality and stationarity. It provides context for the interpretation of reference hydrology and climate model projections and for understanding of the links between atmosphere-ocean dynamics and regional hydroclimatic variability. The value added by a longer perspective, and the fundamental necessity of water for life, gives all research in paleohydrology societal relevance; however, relatively few paleo-hydrologists have collaborated directly with water managers to influence water resource policies or management practices.
Ice cores, banded corals, laminated speleothems, tree rings and varved sediments preserve annual hydroclimatic signals. Among these proxies, tree-rings have the advantage of absolute annual resolution, wide distribution and massive replication. Water balance variables are inferred from radial tree growth at dry sites, where it is limited by the availability of soil moisture. Continuous time series of annual/sub-annual tree-ring data can be processed using the methods employed by engineering hydrologists, including uncertainty analysis and disaggregation of proxy data in space and time. Much of this research has shown that existing water policies and management practices are based on an underestimation of the severity of excessively wet and dry conditions. Recent studies, however, have reached a different conclusion; that extreme events in early 21st century are unprecedented in the paleo record. This recent shift in the outcomes and interpretation of dendro-hydroclimatology suggests an emerging signal of global climate change and the anticipated hydrologic response to greenhouse gas warming.
When climate proxy and model data are compared, new insights arise about the modes and drivers of climate variability and whether they are adequately simulated by numerical climate models. The models tend to be more energetic at high versus low frequencies relative to instrumental and proxy hydroclimatic data, implying that climate projections underestimate the future risk from persistent droughts and pluvials. Research in paleo-hydroclimatology also addresses an important distinction between cyclical variability and incremental long-term climate change and key practical questions about whether observed and projected climate changes are beyond the range of natural variability. Trends in short instrumental records (i.e., non-stationarity in mean values) can be falsely perceived as climate change if the signal of incremental change is relatively weak. Natural variability masks the signal of climate change and contributes to substantial uncertainty in model simulations especially at mid- and high-latitudes and for precipitation-related variables.
