Dr. Hugh MacIsaac wins Frank H. Rigler award

Invasive species expert to receive award named for academic inspiration

A UWindsor aquatic ecologist will receive an award later this week named after a celebrated scientist who once inspired him with a lecture debunking the existence of the Loch Ness monster.~

“I remember that talk like it was yesterday,” said Hugh MacIsaac, a professor in the Great Lakes Institute of Environmental Research who will receive the Frank H. Rigler award at an event in Toronto on January 7.

While still an undergraduate student at the University of Windsor back in the early 1980s, Dr. MacIsaac heard Dr. Rigler lecture on the subject of bio-energetics—the study of energy flow through living systems—arguing that the fabled Loch Ness monster couldn’t possibly exist because there wasn’t enough food energy in the Scottish lake for it to survive. Coincidentally, MacIsaac said, some of those same theories were used in a recently published academic article suggesting that there is not enough food energy for the highly-feared Asian carp to thrive in the Great Lakes.

The Frank H. Rigler Award is the highest honour given by the Society of Canadian Limnologists. It was first presented in 1984 to honour major achievements in the field of limnology—the ecological study of inland waters—by Canadians or those working in Canada. Emphasis in selection is given to established aquatic scientists whose work is recognized for its influence and importance. Rigler taught at both the University of Toronto and McGill University. He died in 1982.

MacIsaac, one of Canada’s leading experts on aquatic invasive species, is director of the Canadian Aquatic Invasive Species Network and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Invasive Species Research Chair. He has published more than a hundred journal articles on the subject of invasive species. His research on the effects of ocean water on freshwater invasive species led Transport Canada to implement new regulations in 2006 that require ocean-going freighters to flush their ballast tanks at sea before entering Canada’s inland shipping routes, a move that has led to an apparent decrease in the introduction of new invaders.

— Stephen Fields

UWindsor researcher Hugh MacIsaac is honoured to be receiving the Frank H. Rigler Award from the Society of Canadian Limnologists later this week.