
A new ecosystem
for scientific progress

What we’re creating
a space where scientists, managers and policy-makers COLLABORATE TO develop research questions that advance knowledge and inform sustainable resource management.
We bring together diverse perspectives, skillsets and tools to tackle pressing environmental concerns, in the Great Lakes and beyond.
We conduct synthesis-driven research to understand the ecological interactions and processes necessary to sustain ecosystems in the Great Lakes basin. We integrate knowledge across scales, scientific traditions, and applications. Our goal is to bring a global perspective to local applications.
We create spaces for the collaborative development of questions and solutions in ecosystem management. We seek a diversity of perspectives, backgrounds, and applications in biodiversity science.
A new study co-authored by the Centre for Ecosystem Management’s Dr. Kevin McCann reveals that agricultural land use—especially nutrient runoff and the loss of streamside vegetation—is reshaping how energy flows through stream food webs.
Bridge Michigan reporter Kelly House is highlighting a distressing trend: lake whitefish (or adikameg, in the Anishinaabe language) — once a staple in the diets and culture of those living along the shores of the Great Lakes — are now on the verge of collapse in Lakes Michigan and Huron.
As the planet faces unprecedented environmental change, understanding how ecosystems respond is increasingly important. A new study, co-authored by the Centre for Ecosystem Management’s Charlotte Ward, Dr. Kevin McCann, and Dr. Kayla Hale, sheds light on a widespread ecological phenomenon.
When we talk about climate change, we often think in extremes—heat waves, vanishing glaciers, and species on the brink. But nature’s responses to these shifts are far more nuanced, and according to a new paper co-authored by the Centre for Ecosystem Management’s Dr. Joey Bernhardt, understanding when ecosystems respond may be just as important as understanding how they respond.
You don’t always need massive datasets to learn something important about nature. While modern ecology often focuses on large-scale “big data,” a recent study carried out, in part, by one of our collaborators Dr. Robert Hanner shows that smaller, less-than-perfect datasets can still reveal important patterns—if analyzed carefully.
Today, May 22, marks the International Day for Biological Diversity, a global occasion to reflect on and reaffirm our collective commitment to protecting the natural world.
One of the core activities of the Centre is to host postdoctoral fellows and working groups tackling applied biodiversity science challenges in the Great Lakes region. We provide space, support, and knowledge transfer activities relating to biodiversity science.