NU grad student needs help in contest

Nipissing Master of Environmental Sciences student Mandy Ehnes is in the running to win a video contest and needs your votes.
The contest, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s (NSERC)Science, Action! video contest challenges postsecondary students to film a one-minute video about the research and innovations that are transforming Canadian lives. Contestants are eligible to win one of 15 cash prizes worth up to $5,000.

All you have to do to help Ehnes is watch, like and share the video, which you can find, right here, before March 18.

Here’s an abstract on Ehnes’ work:It is widely recognized that green spaces are important for recreation and promote healthy air and lifestyles. While imperative for human wellbeing, woodlots are also critical for providing habitat for wildlife. Urban woodlots act as islands for species that reside in the surrounding natural habitat. Emerald ash borer (EAB; Agrilus planipennis) is an invasive beetle to North America killing millions of healthy ash trees (Fraxinus ssp.) in the USA and Canada, leaving billions more at risk. Canopy changes can influence animal biodiversity and signaling behaviour in complex ways. Using innovative technologies I will illustrate how community membership can shift and species that remain in poor-quality habitat may show reduced signaling behaviour related to condition.  First, I use automated recording technology and bioacoustics software to quantify bird composition and fitness. Second, EAB related canopy mortality is unprecedented in efficiency and speed, and as a result, current methods of quantifying canopy health may not fully capture complete canopy damage.  My research uses unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology to capture images of canopy mortality as a supplementary method of measuring canopy disturbance in relation to potential songbird habitat.