M. Alex Smith

I am from a small town in the Ottawa Valley, Ontario. It was here in the rivers, streams and marshes of Renfrew County that I first thought I wanted to be a biologist - it was in Costa Rica in 1991 that I knew. My research today is informed by, and about, each place. I obtained a B.Sc. (Hons) and an M.Sc. (1998) in Biology from Trent University in Peterborough Ontario, and then moved to Montreal, Quebec for my Ph.D. (2004) at McGill University. I received an FQAR Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the Quebec provincial government that I took to the University of Guelph, and in 2008 was hired as an assistant professor in Molecular Ecology at the University of Guelph. As a biologist, it is important to me to work in both the field and laboratory to integrate field and molecular biology into questions of ecological and evolutionary importance to conservation. I am currently working on multiple projects that include molecular estimates of biodiversity and the distribution of phylogenetic diversity, the co-evolutionary ecology of host/parasitoid/symbiont relationships and the phylogeography of both ants and amphibians.

As a biologist, I try to look at life from multiple perspectives by integrating field and molecular biology. I am currently working on multiple projects that include the molecular estimates of biodiversity and the distribution of phylogenetic diversity (using ants as a model system) the co-evolutionary ecology of host/parasitoid/symbiont relationships (using parasitic wasps and flies as a model system) and the phylogeography of both ants and amphibians. These projects all fall within a research program that I describe as, “species and spaces” where the aim is to test the spatial population ecology and long term ecological monitoring of threatened and understudied species and areas from a biogeographic and phylogeographic perspective using both molecular and traditional ecological tools. My research is hypothesis-based but many of these hypotheses are directed by prior discovery based experiments using a preliminary single gene survey of a taxon or an area. I see the complementary and iterative interactions of discovery-based and hypothesis-based science as one of the most rewarding features of ecological research with a molecular component.

Lab Poster 2011.

NEWS:

120509 - I wrote a blog on paper on Wolbachia and Barcoding Insects: Problems, Patterns and Potential in the Barcode of Life Connect website today.

120502 - Our paper on Wolbachia and Barcoding Insects: Problems, Patterns and Potential was released today in PLoSONE.

120307 - Here is video of the Prenolepis imparis colony in front of the Science Complex at the University of Guelph. Active active today for the first time in 2012. Welcome Back Ants (one month earlier than last year)!

120306 - I had a fun time participating in the University of Guelph's Philopolis this past weekend. There's an article in the Guelph Mercury about our session on the "Species Problem" here.

120220 - I have set up a web site to document the February 2012 ACG ant collection trip. The site includes the videos, field notes, maps, GigaPans and eventually barcoding results and can be found here.

111203 - I have set up a web site to document the November and December 2011 ACG ant collection trip. The site includes the videos, field notes, maps, GigaPans and eventually barcoding results and can be found here.

111123 - An article in One Earth magazine profiles the GigaPan and discusses my use of it in Costa Rica in, "Moment Magnified".

111118 - At Guelph article profiles the upcoming Nearby Nature GigaBlitz, recently profiled in GigaPan Magazine.

110924 - Our paper, led by Mike Sharkey and Stephanie Clutts, that integrates morphology, genetics, and caterpillar rearing records in the description of the parasitoid Lytopylus in Costa Rica. Open access paper that can be accessed in ZooKeys.

110901 - The CFI grant that my colleagues Sarah Adamowicz and Mehrdad Hajibabaei wrote has been been successful - soon more infrastructure for biodiversity science!.

110829 - Our paper that integrates genetics, natural history collections, taxonomy and climate change in parasitoid wasp collections made at Churchill, Manitoba between 1930 and 2007 is out today at PLoSONE - have a look here.

110814 - Grant Dobson of the Shaw Woods, talks to the The Ottawa River Institute and the Bonnechere River Watershed Project collaborative Nature in Your Neighbourhood Project about the ongoing Malaise trapping in Shaw Woods.

110804 - "At Guelph" article considers our recent publication in PLoS ONE regarding the spruce budworm foodweb.

110718 - A new website has been setup to help coordinate the Algonquin Park Terrestrial Arthropod survey here.

110706 - Our paper that integrates classic foodweb biology, taxonomy, natural history and genetics is out at PLoSONE - have a look here.

110615 - A new website has been setup to help coordinate the Dairy Bush Arthropod survey here.

110601 - An article appears today in Conservation Magazine about GigaPans and conservation science. One of my Cacao GigaPans appears as an example.

110429 - Jan Hrcek's paper on host-parasitoid relationships in Papua New Guinea appears in Molecular Ecology Resources Early View today.

110422 - One of the ACG GigaPans (here) was featured on the University of Guelph homepage to celebrate Earth Day. An article describing the project in At Guelph is here.

110407 - The Prenolepis imparis colony in front of the Science Complex at the University of Guelph is active today for the first time in 2011. Welcome Back Ants!

110407 - I had the privilege of participating in a cool workshop on Biomimicry last weekend. It is discussed in an At Guelph article here.

110406 - One of the ACG GigaPans (here) is part of a series being featured on the GigaPan website to help celebrate Earth Day.

110404 - A photo from Volcan Cacao, near Sendero Circular) in the ACG is the backdrop to Claudia Bertrand's article about her Master's research in this April 2011's iBOL Bulletin.

110228 - I have set up a web site to document the most recent (Feb 2011) ACG ant collection trip. The site includes the videos, field notes, maps, GigaPans and eventually barcoding results and can be found at: https://sites.google.com/site/acgantcollectionsfeb2011/.

110228 - I have set up a web site to document the recent French Guiana, Nouragues research station ant and parasitoid collection trip. The site includes the videos, field notes, maps, GigaPans and eventually barcoding results and can be found at: https://sites.google.com/site/nouraguescollections2011/.

110117 - My favorite field hat is highlighted on the Wellington Brewery "where in the world" site!

101214 - Our MAPL paper (Early View) was discussed in today's Barcode of Life Blog.

101213 - I have set up a web site to document the December and November 2010 ACG ant collection trip. The site includes the videos, field notes, maps, GigaPans and eventually barcoding results and can be found at: https://sites.google.com/site/acgdecembercollections.

101203 - Three images from Dairy Bush GigaPan series were featured today in a fund-raising gala for the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in Hong Kong. Check out some photos taken of the gala here and here.

101119 - Our paper about barcoding gut contents of adult parasitoid wasps to reveal larval host species is in Molecular Ecology, Early View today.

101104 - Science article about the GigaPan focuses on the Dairy Bush from September 22nd 2010. The UoG press release is here. (Frenkel KA 2010 Panning for Science. Science 330:748-749). The talk from Pittsburgh is on YouTube.

My research program expressed as a word cloud (from www.wordle.net).

I am currently recruiting graduate students. If you are a highly motivated student with interests in the research topics described on this page, a Canadian upper-year undergraduate with a strong academic records and intend to apply for NSERC PGS and/or OGS funds please contact me about the possibility of supporting your application. Funded positions are currently available (see below), however students with external funding (NSERC, OGS, FQAR etc.) are encouraged to contact me. Information regarding the graduate program at the University of Guelph is here.

Fall 2012 - I am currently only able to accept students with external funding (NSERC, OGS, FQAR etc).

Check the University of Guelph Graduate Program here to see if you are eligible and please contact me if you have questions and would like to discuss these opportunities!

PhD McGill University 2004 (David M. Green)

MSc Trent University 1998 (Michael Berrill and Carolyn Kapron)

BSc Trent University 1996

Full CV

Ectatomma in Belize - 2010.

Ecology of parasitoids, hyperparasitoids, symbionts and hosts
"Ecological interactions among species are the most important processes that drive adaptive evolution and the diversification of species" - Wade 2007. Work in this program has already allowed a more accurate direct understanding of patterns of host-specialization amongst several families of parasitoid insects. We are now in a position to examine co-evolutionary relationships amongst the hosts, the parasitoids, their own parasites (hyperparasitoids - Taeniogonalos sp.) and bacterial symbionts (Wolbachia). We discovered several cases where parasitoids expected to be host generalists were, in fact, morphologically cryptic specialists. The inverse of this discovery is a unique capability to more precisely examine the causes and consequences of those remaining truly generalist parasitoids - prior work on these taxa and in this tropical area regarding host-generalist parasitoids dealt with a bad data due to the inclusion of morphologically cryptic specialists! Highly collaborative work with Dan Janzen, Winnie Hallwachs (collections and ecology and general ecological evolutionary know how), Monty Wood, Norm Woodley, Jim Whitfield, Josephine Rodriguez, Michael Sharkey, David Smith and Andy Dean (taxonomy, ecology and phylogeny), and Mehrdad Hajibabaei, Rodolphe Rougerie, Dirk Steinke (molecular).

Recent contributions from this program

Smith, M. Alex, and 28 co-authors listed alphabetically. (2012) Wolbachia and DNA barcoding insects: Problems, Patterns and Potential. PLoSONE 7(5):e36514.

Rougerie, R., Smith, M. Alex, Fernandez- Triana,J., Lopez-Vaamonde, C., and Hebert, PDN. Molecular analysis of parasitoid linkages (MAPL): gut contents of adult parasitoid wasps reveal larval host. Molecular Ecology 20(1):179-86.

Smith, M. Alex, Eveleigh, ES, McCann, KS, McCarthy, PC, Van Rooyen, KI. Barcoding a quantified food web: crypsis, concepts, ecology and hypotheses. PLoS ONE 6(7): e14424.

Smith, M. Alex, Rodriguez, J. J., Whitfield, J. B., Deans, A. R., Janzen, D. H., Hallwachs, W., and Hebert, P. D. N. (2008) Extreme diversity of tropical parasitoid wasps exposed by iterative integration of natural history, DNA barcoding, morphology, and collections. PNAS 105(35):12359-12364.

Smith, M. Alex, Wood, D. M., Janzen, D. L., Hallawachs, W. and Hebert, P. D. N. (2007) DNA barcodes affirm that 16 species of apparently generalist tropical parasitoid flies (Diptera, Tachinidae) are not all generalists. PNAS. 104(12):4967-4972.

Smith, M. Alex, Woodley, N. Hallwachs, W. Janzen, D. H. Hebert, P. D. N. (2006) DNA barcodes reveal cryptic host-specificity within the presumed polyphagous members of a genus of parasitoid flies (Diptera: Tachinidae). PNAS 103:3657-3662.

Biodiversity assessment in a molecular age
"Species are the currency of biology" - Agapow et al 2004 - and molecular techniques for enumerating and comparing areas and faunas should allow the rapid enumeration of 'total biodiversity'. To date, work in this area has been published for a test-data set from Madagascar, and further analyses in Mauritius will be submitted for publication this year. This work is also highly collaborative involving Brian Fisher, Paul-Michael Agapow (and we mourn the loss of our colleague Ross Crozier) and independent work where my lab provides both field collections and genetic expertise. Ant fauna of the Malagasy region provide a model system to examine the co-evolution of endemic and invasive species.

Recent contributions from this program

Crozier, R. H., Agapow, P‐M., and M. Alex Smith. (2010) Conservation genetics: from species to habitats. in BIODIVERSITY RESEARCH– SAFEGUARDING THE FUTURE: Outcomes and recommendations of the CBD - COP 9 Associated Meeting Bonn, May 2008, Editor: Jessica M. Reeves. pp 73-79.

Smith, M. Alex, and B. L. Fisher. (2009) Invasions, DNA barcodes, and rapid biodiversity assessment using ants of Mauritius. Frontiers in Zoology. 6:31.

Smith,M. Alex, Fernandez-Triana, J, Roughley, R., and Hebert, P. D. N. (2009) DNA barcode accumulation curves for understudied taxa and areas. Molecular Ecology Resources. 9s1:208-216.

Smith, M. Alex, Fisher, B. L., and Hebert, P. D. N. (2005) DNA barcoding for effective biodiversity assessment of a hyperdiverse arthropod group: the ants of Madagascar. Phil Trans Roy Soc: B. 360:1828-1834.

Biogeography, phylogeography and spatial ecology of temperate amphibians and ants

"Phylogeography..an integrative endeavor that lies at an important crossroads of diverse micro- and macroevolutionary disciplines" - Avise 2000. For many species in the Great Lakes region of North America the principal determinants of contemporary phylogeography are the historic distance from southern refugia during Pleistocene glaciation. Population genetic studies of freshwater species have demonstrated significant genetic structuring in disjunct habitats (such as river basins), however anthropogenic change (e.g. pollution and dams) have reduced many formerly continuous habitats into subdivided islands. Within amphibian species native to Ontario I am interested in investigating local and regional processes of population isolation (dispersal, metapopulation ecology) coincident with hydrogeographic isolation. Within the ant species of Ontario, I am interested in an inter-specific comparison between those species with winged vs. wingless queens and the geographic distribution of genetic variation, and a comparison of the genetic variation of endemic vs. native species where they co-occur.

Recent contributions from this program

Smith, M. Alex, Green, D. M. (2004) Phylogeography of Bufo fowleri at its northern edge of range. Mol Ecol 13(12): 3723-3733.

Smith, M. Alex, Green, D. M. (2005) Dispersal and the metapopulation paradigm in amphibian ecology and conservation: Are all amphibian populations metapopulations? Ecography 28(1): 110-128.

This is a video of a recent presentation that Brian Fisher made of our work at the International Barcode of Life Conference in Mexico City (November, 2009).

Searching for ants in Gros Morne National Park - 2009

• Editors selected this article for associated commentary: Miller (2007) DNA barcoding and the renaissance of taxonomy. PNAS 104(12):4775-4776
  Editors selected this article for highlight in a front section of the print journal called In This Issue to highlight certain articles published in that issue. PNAS 104(12): 4771-4772
• One of the 50 most read articles in PNAS in Spring 2007.

• One of Molecular Ecology Notes most frequently read papers - 2006-2008.

• Cover article that was one of the most-frequently-read articles in PNAS in spring 2006.
• Editors selected article for associated commentary: Herre, E. A. (2006) Barcoding helps biodiversity fly Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 103(11): 3949-3950.

• Cover article of special volume devoted to DNA barcoding.
  One of Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B most cited papers.
• Collaboration is part of the cover article of the March 2006 issue of Discover.

• One of Ecography's most frequently read papers 2006-2008.