New UBC Okanagan research shows wildfire can change how much water remains in streams during the driest months of the year.

Wildfires don’t just burn forests. They can also change how much water is left in creeks and rivers in summer, when water is scarce and demand is high, according to new research led by UBC Okanagan. 

Published in Forest Ecosystems, the study looks at stream flows between July and September—after spring snowmelt and before fall rains.

These flows matter because they determine how much water is available for drinking, irrigation, fish habitat and emergency response during heat waves and drought.

“This is the kind of study that helps move us from ‘wildfire changes flow’ to ‘here’s why, when and through which pathways,’” says Shixuan Lyu, lead author and a doctoral student with UBC Okanagan’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

“In water management, mechanisms matter because they affect what you can plan for and how long changes might last.”

They used a combination of long-term stream measurements and chemical “fingerprints” that revealed where the water originated. Researchers found that burned watersheds in the Okanagan Valley had more water flowing later into the summer than unburned watersheds, but with considerable variations.

At first glance, that might sound like a benefit. But the researchers say the apparent boost comes with important caveats.

“Low flows are the pinch point for communities, agriculture and fish habitat,” said Dr. Adam Wei, senior author and a hydrologist with UBC Okanagan. “Understanding how wildfire reshapes the seasonal balance between snowmelt, groundwater and water loss to the atmosphere is key to building realistic watershed strategies in a warming climate.

“It’s also important to understand that every watershed is unique, with different water responses to wildfires, so management strategies must be tailored to local watersheds.”

After wildfire, fewer trees mean less water is pulled back into the atmosphere, and more snowmelt reaches streams and underground storage earlier in the year. That can temporarily increase summer low flows; however, as forests recover, water losses are expected to rise again. In some cases, they may exceed pre-fire levels.

The findings suggest wildfire can briefly reshape water availability during the dry summer, but they also underscore the need for long-term monitoring and careful planning as extreme weather, wildfire and water demand increasingly intersect.

“This isn’t a new source of water,” said Lyu. “It’s a shift in timing and pathways, and those shifts don’t last forever.”  

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Dr. Magali Nehemy speaks to Cacique Domingos Mundurukú, local elder from Aldeia Bragança, Pará, in the Amazon during a research trip to study how the forest recycles rainfall.

An international research team has found that during the Amazon’s dry season, forests rely heavily on recent rainfall stored in shallow soil to keep the region’s climate in balance. 

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the UBC Okanagan-led study found that most of the water used by trees in eastern Amazon forests during the dry season comes from the top 50 centimetres of soil—water that fell only weeks or months earlier. 

“The Amazon forest produces its own rain by quickly returning water to the atmosphere via transpiration and producing its own rainfall when it needs it the most, during the dry season,” says Dr. Magali Nehemy, Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at UBCO.  

“Transpiration—water that is returned to the atmosphere by plants—is the largest flux on land. Changing forests changes this process, which in turn impacts rainfall, water availability and the ecosystems that depend on it.” 

In the Amazon dry season, up to 70 per cent of rainfall can come from this recycled moisture.  

Working in Brazil’s Tapajós National Forest during the peak of the dry season, Dr. Nehemy’s team collected data across two sites: a hilltop forest with a deep water table and a valley forest near a stream where groundwater is shallower.  

“The results were surprising,” says Dr. Nehemy. “Most of the water used for transpiration in the dry season did not come from deep reserves but from shallow soil. In a year without extreme drought or floods, nearly 70 per cent of transpiration on the hill and nearly half in the valley came from the top 50 centimetres of soil.”  

The study also shows that a tree’s embolism resistance, or how well it moves water through its tissues under drought conditions, explains why some species can keep using this recently fallen rain while others must rely on deeper stores.  

“It means the diversity of species and their drought resistance are directly tied to how the forest stabilizes its own climate,” says Dr. Nehemy. 

For her, the work is not only about physics and roots, but also about people. The field sites sit within the traditional territory of the Munduruku people. Many of the most protected forests left in the Amazon are in Indigenous territories.  

The findings have direct implications for climate models and policy.  

By linking tree traits, shallow soil water use and dry-season rainfall, the study offers a more mechanistic way to represent Amazon forests in land-surface and climate models, including those used to assess tipping points and water security under continued deforestation and warming.  

“In the long term, I would like us to be able to predict how changing vegetation cover shapes water availability via rainfall and climate vulnerability across different areas,” says Dr. Nehemy.  

“The Amazon really is a rain-making engine. If we weaken the forest’s ability to recycle water, we risk weakening the entire hydrological cycle that supports people, ecosystems and agriculture far beyond the forest itself.” 

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People sit on an Okanagan Lake beach viewing a distant wildfire.

How wildfires spread is more variable and unpredictable than Canada’s standard models assume, new research from UBC Okanagan data scientists shows.

Ladan Tazik, lead author of a new study in Fire and UBC Okanagan doctoral student, used advanced computer vision tools to capture fire behaviour with a level of detail that wasn’t possible even a few years ago.

Her work sheds light on the random elements of fire movement—information that could reshape how fire behaviour is modelled and forecasted in an era of worsening wildfire seasons.

“Image processing techniques let us quantify fire behaviour in real time, including the parts that don’t follow consistent patterns,” says Tazik. “By capturing the randomness in how fires spread, we can build models that better reflect reality and help improve decision-making during active fire events.”

Tazik led the design, analysis and modelling that form the backbone of the study.

She used the “Segment Anything Model”, a state-of-the-art AI tool, to extract fire perimeters from experimental burn videos frame by frame to study fire spread dynamics.

This allowed her to study directional fire spread on sloped terrain without assuming the fire behaves predictably or spreads in a simple line.

Her analysis confirmed something firefighters may know instinctively: fires race uphill. But when she compared her measurements with the values used in Canada’s official Fire Behaviour Prediction System, the numbers didn’t always line up.

Real fires often moved faster, and the influence of slope wasn’t consistent from place to place.

She tested the method on ponderosa pine and Douglas fir fuels often used in fire research.

This highlights that small differences in fuel, wind and terrain can add to the unpredictability of fire and introduce important variations in how it spreads.

Even under nearly identical conditions, the flames didn’t behave the same way twice.

In practical terms, that means most fire spread is shaped by randomness—far more than today’s deterministic models capture.

“These results show that we need to pair every spread estimate with a measure of uncertainty,” Tazik explains. “Simply multiplying by a slope factor isn’t enough. Fire is dynamic, and our models should acknowledge that.”

Research supervisor Dr. W. John Braun says the project demonstrates how emerging computer vision tools can transform wildfire science.

“Tazik proposed innovative ways to tackle this difficult modelling problem,” he says. “Her work shows how high-resolution perimeter data and advanced modelling can help us understand the real variability in fire behaviour. That’s essential if we want to move toward more probabilistic, data-driven prediction systems.”

The study also included contributions from Dr. John R.J. Thompson, Assistant Professor of Data Science, Mathematics and Statistics, as well as other partners who provided the experimental and field video datasets.

While the fuel experiments supported the research, Tazik alone led the segmentation and modelling components.

Tazik says the next step is to expand the approach to more fuel types and fire conditions and use airborne or satellite imagery to study fire spread dynamics.

With more Earth observation and remote sensing tools available, she sees an opportunity to build models that better capture wildfire dynamics while embracing the inherent uncertainty of fire, rather than smoothing it away.

“Fires don’t behave perfectly,” she says. “Our tools shouldn’t pretend they do.”

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UBCO-led Let’s Talk Science educators spend two weeks teaching nearly 1,000 youth around Prince Rupert, BC—a 2,000-kilometre round trip

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UBC Okanagan doctoral student Tuan-Anh Nguyen, left, and Dr. Thu-Thuy Dang examine plant samples in their lab. Their research has uncovered how tropical trees produce mitraphylline, a rare compound with potential anti-tumour properties.

Researchers at UBC Okanagan have uncovered how plants produce mitraphylline, a rare natural compound that may help fight cancer. 

Mitraphylline belongs to a small group of plant molecules called spirooxindole alkaloids.  

These compounds have unusual “twisted” ring structures and are known for their strong effects, like fighting tumours and inflammation.  

Despite their promise, the molecular process that plants use to make spirooxindoles remained a mystery. 

That changed in 2023, when Dr. Thu-Thuy Dang’s research group in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science found the first plant enzyme that can twist a molecule into the spiro shape.  

“This is similar to finding the missing links in an assembly line,” says Dr. Dang, UBC Okanagan Principal’s Research Chair in Natural Products Biotechnology. “It answers a long-standing question about how nature builds these complex molecules and gives us a new way to replicate that process.” 

Building on that breakthrough, doctoral student Tuan-Anh Nguyen led the effort to identify a pair of enzymes—one that sets up the molecules’ 3D configuration and another that twists it into mitraphylline. 

Natural compounds are often found in very small amounts in plants, making them difficult or costly to reproduce in the lab. Mitraphylline is one such example: it occurs only in trace amounts in tropical trees like Mitragyna (kratom) and Uncaria (cat’s claw), members of the coffee family.  

By identifying enzymes that build and shape mitraphylline, researchers now have a roadmap for producing it and related compounds in sustainable ways. 

“With this discovery, we have a green chemistry approach to accessing compounds with enormous pharmaceutical value,” says Nguyen. “This is a result of UBC Okanagan’s research environment, where students and faculty work closely to solve problems with global reach.

“Being part of the team that uncovered the enzymes behind spirooxindole compounds has been amazing,” he adds. “UBC Okanagan’s mentorship and support made this possible, and I’m excited to keep growing as a researcher here in Canada.” 

The project is the result of collaboration between Dr. Dang’s lab at UBC Okanagan and Dr. Satya Nadakuduti’s team at the University of Florida.  

The work was supported by Canada’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council’s Alliance International Collaboration program, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and the Michael Smith Health Research BC Scholar Program. Support also came from the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. 

“We are proud of this discovery coming from UBC Okanagan. Plants are fantastic natural chemists,” Dr. Dang says. “Our next steps will focus on adapting their molecular tools to create a wider range of therapeutic compounds.” 

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This collared jaguar was among the animals followed in the international study on wildlife movement patterns.

Cats and dogs may share our homes, but their wild relatives have moved through the world very differently for tens of millions of years. 

That’s one conclusion of a new study by a team of global researchers, including at UBC Okanagan, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  

The research reveals that canids—wolves, coyotes and foxes—follow dense, predictable paths across their territories, while felids such as cougars, leopards and lynx tend to move in a more scattered way. 

“Cats and dogs split into separate species about 45 million years ago, and they’ve never looked back,” says Dr. Michael Noonan, Assistant Professor of Biology at UBC Okanagan’s Biodiversity, Resilience and Ecosystem Services (BRAES) Institute. “We can still see that divergence in how they move through their environments today.” 

The study analyzed GPS data from more than 1,200 animals across 34 species and six continents, using physics-based models to map “routeways,” or travel lines that animals reuse.  

On average, canids displayed 15 to 33 per cent more routeways than felids, even when living in the same areas. 

The differences may come from their diets, hunting styles and social behaviours. Canids often chase their prey, are omnivores and highly social, while felids hunt alone and are strict carnivores.  

Those traits may also relate to another long-debated question: are dogs smarter than cats? 

The short answer is no. The study wasn’t looking into intelligence in the modern understanding. Instead, the research supports long and poorly understood differences. 

“We didn’t test intelligence directly, but the results line up with existing psychology research showing canids have stronger spatial working memory,” says Noonan. “It’s not that dogs are smarter overall—they just seem wired to remember and reuse travel routes, while cats navigate space differently.” 

The findings carry clear conservation lessons. Canids’ reliance on predictable routes makes them more vulnerable to roads and barriers, but also more likely to benefit from wildlife crossings.  

In contrast, felids’ diffuse movements make them harder to protect with a single structure, but it may also help them hunt better in their smaller home ranges. 

“In British Columbia and Alberta, forestry and energy projects create roads and seismic lines that help canid movement, which can affect prey animals like caribou,” says Dr. Adam Ford, Canada Research Chair in Wildlife Restoration Ecology at UBCO and a study co-author. “Understanding these patterns is essential for effective conservation planning.” 

The project also highlights the collaborative and interdisciplinary strengths of UBC Okanagan researchers. Experts in biology, physics and statistics worked with more than 100 international partners, to create models that apply physics principles to wildlife movement. 

With GPS tracking often costing about $10,000 per animal, the project relied on a rare culture of global data sharing. 

“This is another great example of how scientists in the Okanagan are helping answer global questions in animal movement,” adds Noonan. “By combining ecology with tools from physics, we can find patterns that apply across species, continents and millions of years of evolution.” 

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Researchers at UBC Okanagan say that Indo-Canadians experience changes in their gut microbiome as their diets become westernized.

A new international study led by researchers at UBC Okanagan has found that Indo-Canadians, or Canadians who were born in Canada with Indian descent, experience major shifts in their gut microbiome as their diets become more westernized.  

Researchers say these changes may help explain why South Asian immigrants in Canada face a higher risk of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). 

“Many non-European populations are underrepresented in microbiome research,” says Leah D’Aloisio, a Master of Science graduate at UBC Okanagan and the study’s first author.  

“By studying Indo-Canadian immigrants, we can better understand how quickly the gut responds to dietary transitions, and how this influences chronic disease prevention.” 

The study, published in npj Biofilms and Microbiomes, compared stool samples and dietary data from more than 170 participants across India and Canada, including Indians living in India, first-generation Indian immigrants (“Indo-immigrants”), Indo-Canadians, Euro-Canadians and Euro-immigrant controls. 

When compared to Indians living in India, both Indo-Canadians and first-generation Indian immigrants showed a change in their gut microbiomes and dietary patterns; however, this transition was most prominent in Indo-Canadians.  

The findings show that while Indians residing in India maintain gut bacteria linked to a high-fibre, plant-based diet, Indo-Canadians display a “transitional” microbiome marked by the loss of beneficial Prevotella species and increased signs of a westernized gut ecosystem. 

Westernization and health risks 

Globally, Indians experience some of the sharpest increases in IBD after migration. In Canada, the incidence of IBD among South Asians is more than six times higher than in India. 

Researchers say dietary acculturation—shifts toward ultra-processed foods high in sugar and additives, and away from fibre-rich traditional diets—is a major driver of microbiome change. 

“Our study shows that the gut doesn’t just adapt to where you live, it adapts to what you eat,” said Dr. Deanna Gibson, Professor of Biology at UBC Okanagan and senior author.  

“For Indo-Canadians, that means a microbiome caught between two worlds—traditional and western—which may help explain why disease risk increases when you are born here in Canada despite parents being from another continent like India.” 

What the study found 

• Indians in India had gut bacteria enriched with Prevotella, known for breaking down complex plant-based carbohydrates and dietary fibre. 

• Indo-Immigrants and Indo-Canadians showed a decline in these bacteria and a rise in microbes common in western populations, such as Blautia and Anaerostipes. 

• Dietary analysis revealed that ultra-processed foods made up more than 60% of Indo-Canadians’ daily calories, compared to just 12% in Indians. Fibre intake was highest in India and lowest among Indo-Canadians. 

“Indians living in India should take note: stick with the traditional dietary patterns,” says Dr. Gibson.  

“The rapid development and industrialization of food systems in India will mean the adoption of westernized guts and therefore disease risks like IBD.  Indeed, IBD is on a massive uptick over the past few years in India, and there’s no doubt it is related to the increased westernization of Indian diets.” 

Western diets, global implications 

These results highlight how immigration, globalization and the food environment shape health and long-term disease risk. The researchers stress that these findings are not limited to Indian populations.  

As diets industrialize worldwide, the gut microbiome is emerging as a powerful marker of how health risks travel with migration and cultural change. 

The project involved collaborators in Canada, India, the UK and the U.S. 

As the global population becomes more mobile and diets continue to industrialize, the researchers call for more culturally relevant dietary guidelines and immigrant-focused health strategies. 

“The exact causes of IBD are still unclear,” D’Aloisio added. “But seeing risk emerge so quickly in immigrant populations gives us a unique opportunity to pinpoint the factors driving disease, and to support communities in keeping protective food traditions alive.” 

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UBC Okanagan and the National Research Council of Canada have launched publicly accessible data resources to help Canadian industries measure and improve their sustainability.

A new national database co-developed by researchers at UBC Okanagan and The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) aims to help Canadian industries better measure and manage sustainability. 

Led by Dr. Nathan Pelletier, Associate professor in UBCO’s Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science , the project creates a shared database that provides companies, industry groups and researchers with reliable data to assess the sustainability of their products and supply chains. 

“Making informed decisions about sustainability is complex because it involves environmental, economic and social factors, all linked through global supply chains,” Dr. Pelletier says. “Until now, Canadian stakeholders have often relied on proxy data from Europe or the United States. This database begins to fill a crucial gap by providing Canadian-specific, quality-controlled data.” 

The database builds on Pelletier’s previous work with the Canadian Agri-food Life Cycle Data Centre and is backed by the Sustainable Protein Production program. 

The database includes detailed data for Canada’s agri-food sector—starting with plant-based protein crops like pulses—and will expand to other industries in the coming years.  

The platform lets users both access data and add their own, helping it grow and improve over time. 

Paul Wiebe, Director of the NRC’s Sustainable Protein Production program, calls the initiative a key success.

“This collaboration highlights how the NRC and UBC can create tools to benefit Canadian industry,” he says. “Access to transparent, Canada-specific data will help producers demonstrate the sustainability benefits of their products and attributes like low carbon and water footprints, which are increasingly important in global trade.”

The agri-food part of the public database is now live, with initial data from Pelletier’s Food Systems PRISM Lab on agriculture and food production.  

Pelletier’s lab is working with national industry groups, including Pulse Canada, Egg Farmers of Canada and the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre, to grow the database and promote its use across the sector. 

Pelletier says the goal is support businesses and researchers while also helping Canada follow international best practices.  

“Using lifecycle data to measure sustainability is the global gold standard, and Canada should be involved in that conversation,” he says. “This resource gives us the tools to do it.” 

Learn more and access the database at: https://eeecc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/en/life-cycle-inventory-warehouse. 

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Wheat grown on the Prairies benefits from decades of conservation tillage and residue management, practices that help soils store more carbon than they release.

Canadian-grown wheat, canola and peas have some of the lowest carbon footprints in the world—so low that, in some cases, they could be shipped to Europe 17 times before matching the emissions of the same crops grown there. 

The study out of UBC Okanagan, published in Nature Food, compared the carbon footprints of these crops from Canada, France, Germany, Australia and the United States.  

Led by Dr. Nicole Bamber of UBCO’s Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science, the research shows that Canada’s lower emissions are mainly due to Canadian soils storing more carbon and farming releasing less nitrous oxide.  

This is largely thanks to widespread low and no-till farming practices and the climate of Western Canada. 

“The idea that ‘local is always lower-carbon’ doesn’t hold true,” says Bamber, the paper’s lead author. “In fact, for many food products, transportation only accounts for a small part of the emissions. 

“When you look at the full lifecycle of crop production, Canada’s prairie-grown wheat, canola and peas consistently outperform their international counterparts, even when you factor in shipping thousands of kilometres to market.” 

Dr. Bamber and Dr. Ian Turner, post-doctoral research fellows, worked alongside Associate Professor Dr. Nathan Pelletier in his Food Systems Priority Research for Integrated Sustainability Management Lab (PRISM). 

Canada’s low emissions come mainly from reduced nitrous oxide release and the ability of prairie soils to store carbon. This is thanks to decades of conservation tillage and careful farming practices that help soils act as carbon sinks rather than sources.  

In other countries, soils often lose carbon because of heavier farming methods as well as less favourable soil and climate conditions. 

“Canada’s production advantages aren’t accidental,” says Dr. Pelletier. “They come from deliberate farming choices, supportive policies and environmental conditions.” 

The research assessed full lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from crop production to the farm gate, including fertilizer production, field activities, field-level nitrous oxide emissions and soil carbon changes.  

The study questions common beliefs about “food miles” and suggests that buying and marketing decisions should consider more than just distance. The authors say the data can help focus efforts to cut emissions and show how Canadian crops can support global climate goals. 

“This gives Canada a competitive edge for Canadian agriculture in global markets that are increasingly sensitive to sustainability,” says Dr. Pelletier. 

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A bumble bee hovers near a cluster of brightly coloured flowers, foraging for nectar and pollen — resources that are vital not only for the colony’s survival but also for pollinating crops.

Researchers at UBC Okanagan have created a mathematical model that captures something remarkable: how a bumblebee colony uses and manages its energy, and what that means for farmers, pollination and the future of sustainable agriculture.  

Developed by doctoral student Pau Capera-Aragonès alongside Drs. Rebecca Tyson and Eric Foxall of UBC Okanagan’s Department of Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics and Statistics, the model simulates the full energy budget of a bumblebee colony and how bees forage across a changing landscape.  

The study introduces a new colony-level framework built on the principles of dynamic energy budget theory.   

“The novelty is in treating the colony as a collective entity, not tracking individual bees. By modelling how the whole system allocates energy to survive, grow and reproduce, we can test how different environmental conditions influence long-term colony health,” says Dr. Foxall.   

The research was recently published in the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology.  

The researchers also adapted the maximum entropy principle, a concept from physics, to estimate how bees distribute themselves across landscapes when foraging.   

Rather than simulating every bee’s behaviour, the model assumes bees spread out in ways that maximize energy gain while minimizing travel costs. “We’re not saying this is a perfect prediction,” notes Dr. Foxall, “but it’s an efficient way to model typical spatial patterns under realistic constraints.”  

Findings with real-world relevance 

While the model doesn’t offer simple prescriptions, it highlights some critical design principles for supporting bee populations and, by extension, the pollination of many crops.  

• Timing matters. An early-season mass bloom can lead to rapid colony expansion. But if resources disappear shortly afterward, the colony may collapse. Success isn’t just about how much food is available, it’s also about when.  

• More isn’t always better. If wildflower patches are too similar to crop flowers and located closer to the nest, bees may shift their focus away from the crops, reducing pollination where it’s most needed.  

• Diversity is key. Many crops provide plenty of nectar (sugar), but limited or unbalanced pollen (protein). “Flowers provide two kinds of food,” explains Dr. Tyson. “Nectar gives them sugar, which is simple. But pollen provides protein, and that’s much more complex.” Different flowers offer different amino acid profiles, and most are not complete protein sources. Without dietary diversity, bees struggle to maintain healthy colonies.  

“In some agricultural systems—like blueberry crops—the pollen lacks certain essential amino acids,” Dr. Tyson adds. “That’s where native wildflowers become especially valuable, because they help fill those nutritional gaps.”  

Even among wildflowers, quality varies. Dandelions, for example, are relatively low in protein.   

“That’s why we recommend planting a variety of wildflowers,” says Dr. Tyson. “Preferably native species, because local bees are adapted to them. As long as you’re planting for diversity, the patch will benefit pollinators.”   

A framework for learning and testing 

The model strikes a balance between ecological detail and computational simplicity.   

“You can plug in some basic assumptions and explore what causes a colony to thrive, or collapse. That’s powerful,” says Dr. Foxall.   

While it wasn’t built to produce location-specific recommendations, it offers a flexible testbed for exploring how landscape design can support pollination over time.  

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