ANDREW MACDOUGALL
Dr. Andrew MacDougall is an associate professor in the Department of Integrative Biology.
His lab focuses on the processes that determine the structure and function of plant communities, and how those processes are altered by the co-varying impacts of global environmental change.
He runs his research projects at the Charitable Research Reserve in Cambridge, a 370-hectare nature reserve where he studies factors affecting prairie restoration. Andrew hopes to see his research site become a self-sustaining prairie, including attracting birds, mammals and insects.
Food From Thought
Andrew MacDougall is the principal investigator behind Food From Thoughts terrestrial ecosystem services project.
The project objectives are to measure the impacts of farming on critical environmental baselines relating to clear air, clean water and biodiversity (terrestrial and aquatic).
It also aims to measure remediation efforts on farms to reduce impacts, through active on-farm collaboration with farmers connected to Alternative Land Use Services (ALUS) Canada.
The project also explores the socioeconomic impacts of “farming services” relating to the marginal land model of precision agriculture/precision conservation where markets support the sale of services as commodities to the benefit of farmers (for example, the ALUS “new-acre program”).