Excited to see our most recent Sable Island horse paper out in Molecular Ecology Resources. We show that shallow shotgun sequencing of the microbiome recapitulates similar biological patterns as amplicon sequencing at comparable costs, while also providing direct measure of functional gene contents. Our hope is that this paper will help encourage other researchers to…
Comfortably Numb?
A new collaborative piece of research published in which we investigated the effect of urbanization on grey squirrel hair cortisol concentrations in two cities of different latitude. Happy to have contributed samples and the cover photo for this article!
CSEE Excellence in Doctoral Research Award
Truly honoured to have been selected for this award. The Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution has been my favourite scientific society by miles. My presentation seems to have gone over well! It was great to be able to share my research with the broader community, especially after years of remote work and virtual meetings….
The Best Research Group Around
Some colleagues and I published a summary of the Animal Microbiome Research Group’s 2021 virtual meeting and an overview of this group’s first year of life! It has been absolutely fantastic to watch this group grow and attract so many awesome early career researchers. If you study animal microbiomes and are interested in joining the…
20 (or 80) below
This was a nice methodological paper in which we compared whether storage temperature (-20 versus -80) over 4 years affected our ability to reconstruct Sable Island horse fecal bacterial communities using 16S amplicon sequencing. TLDR; it doesn’t seem to. For a relatively small-scale and straightforward methodological comparison, we really struck a nerve: Lead author Stefan…
Swapping microbes
Happy to see the first data chapter of my PhD out, and just before the holidays no less. A fun bit of collaboration with @jocelynpoissant @ruthjgee @GavriliucStefan @ali__wilson Astrid Henry and Phil McLoughlin. More exciting work on the @SI_Horses microbiome soon to come! https://t.co/Ovx7or0pxy — Mason Stothart (@M_Stothart) December 22, 2020
Candidacy Completed!
Didn’t bank on a pandemic when I started my degree, but happy to have passed my candidacy. Thanks to all the examiners who squeezed yet another zoom meeting into their schedules! Thrilled! But mostly appreciative of the friends & colleagues who’ve helped prepare me + thankful to the committee/chair for 3hrs (+ prep) of their…
Eco-Reality of Microbiome Transplant Studies
The importance of #EcoReality in #microbiome research, it started as an enthused discussion among faculty & grad students and ended as a collaborative commentary. Out now with @M_Stothart @cgreysongaito @Will_MC_Jarvis @TimothyJBartley @karlcottenie. https://t.co/jVMh0Ob7fA pic.twitter.com/gPOb6VWuC5 — Amy Newman (@Newman_lab) February 26, 2020
It’s What’s On The Inside That Counts
The first paper from my MSc is out in Proc B! (1/n) Chuffed to see the first paper of my MSc with @Newman_lab and Rupert Palme out in @royalsociety ProcB today: "It's what's on the inside that counts: stress physiology and the bacterial microbiome of a wild urban mammal"https://t.co/HJuWZnusFG — Mason Stothart (@M_Stothart) October 23,…
The Horses of Sable
…and their resident microbes.
MSc Complete
I have successfully defended my MSc! Thank you to my friends, family, and colleagues for all of your support. Thank you also to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the rare Charitable Research Reserve for supporting my research.
Mason Stothart, MSc. 