After a decade of research that spanned across the country, the Invasive Species Research Centre at the University of Windsor has shut down. Canada Research Chair Professor Hugh McIssac at the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research says the funding has run out. "It's something that we knew was going to happen because we had five years of funding and then we were given a renewal for five additional years." McIssac says it wasn't a physical centre. He describes it as a virtual centre involving researchers from across Canada, conducting research that spanned the country focused on the early detection and response to invasive species. That research included the impact of year-round shipping in the Arctic, and closer to home, the impact of the spread of the round goby from the Great Lakes into small lakes. He stresses this doesn't mean the research will end. "As this one shuts down, we have two other major proposals at our Great Lakes Institute for future studies on the Great Lakes." The centre has received $14-million in federal government funding over the past ten years.
Lake Huron shoreline. Blackburn Media file photo by Bob Montgomery.
