By Adam-Emmanuel Tremblay, MSc student at McGill University

In May 2024, I had the privilege of travelling to Vancouver for the very first time to attend the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution (CSEE). I followed this up by going to my study area, Haida Gwaii, BC, to collect some samples crucial to my research project. Here is an overview of the trip, one that was valuable on both a personal and professional level.

I arrived in Vancouver a day before the conference and was able to explore the city centre. The conference took place at the University of British Columbia campus and hosted approximately 500 researchers from across the US and Canada. Through the mixers and talks, I got to know people who worked on similar topics as me and more importantly, people who didn’t. I discovered new fields and projects I might never have learnt about otherwise, while also sharing my experiences and research.

As mentioned above, QCBS also allowed me to travel to Haida Gwaii to collect new samples for my research project. Despite going to Haida Gwaii last year to collect samples, this second trip was necessary to improve and complete my dataset.

Recent studies on the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) fish system have significantly advanced our knowledge of evolutionary processes like parapatric divergence. Parapatric divergence is a process where two connected environments, like a lake or a river, are colonized by an original population that slowly “splits” and independently adapts to each environment. Yet, new examples of parapatric divergence are needed to clarify and better current knowledge and to make discoveries. Past studies on the archipelago of Haida Gwaii, BC, Canada, suggest that there is high potential to lead to advances. Indeed, this archipelago is considered one of the more striking examples of evolutionary radiation of vertebrates in the temperate latitudes, which implies that lake-stream pairs on Haida Gwaii might display unique patterns only found on Haida Gwaii. Yet, insufficient parapatric divergence research has been done in Haida Gwaii to confirm this statement, since most pairs are yet to be studied. My project aims to assess Haida Gwaii’s potential for parapatric divergence research by sampling new lake-stream pairs and highlighting new cases of parapatric divergence to compare Haida Gwaii to other areas of the stickleback range.

Through the ten days I spent in Haida Gwaii, I explored new areas and hiked through forests and bogs. I saw mountains, plants and animals that I had never seen before. I got to know my lab and supervisor better. Finally, I also collected 22 new stickleback populations for eight new lake-stream pairs, increasing my total number of pairs to 15, thereby doubling the number of pairs included in my project.

In conclusion, the QCBS Excellence award helped me gain valuable insight and experiences by giving me the opportunity to attend CSEE and collect more samples from my study area. These experiences will surely improve the quality of my research project and help me navigate the rest of my career.