Between the fall of 2006 and winter of 2009, I was enrolled at uOttawa in a Master of Science Biology program. 

 My thesis project was the taxonomic revision and phylogenetic analysis of the flatfish genus Trinectes. If you’re wondering what that means, I was in the same boat when I first started. Essentially, I was responsible for reviewing a genus of flatfish that included several species. “Reviewing” a genus entails taking a detailed look at what characteristics make species of a genus belong to that genus.

The field of taxonomy is all about describing, categorizing, and organizing life forms. There is clear overlap here with LIS, since the latter has a major component of describing materials, such as books or information, through descriptive metadata, standardized fields, etc. The same is true for taxonomy from a biological perspective. It involved taking over 50 measurements of hundreds of preserved flatfish specimens. These specimens were fish that had been collected in various expeditions in the previous decades, identified (to a degree), and preserved in ethanol for future assessment. My work was that assessment, and I was able to describe all 9 species in this genus by finding a series of synapomorphies, or shared derived characteristics, for each of these species. I was also able to point out why these species all belonged in the same genus.

In this process, I was also able to publish the discovery a new species, Trinectes hubbsbollinger, under the title “A New Species of Trinectes (Pleuronectiformes: Achiridae) from the Upper Río San Juan and Río Condoto, Colombia” in the peer-reviewed journal Copeia.

To view this publication, follow this link: https://www-jstor-org.proxy.bib.uottawa.ca/stable/23273263?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents.

It was also during this degree that I was able to conduct a preliminary biogeographical analysis of all the Trinectes species. Essentially, this involved determining the order at which each species diverged by looking at their characteristics (e.g. number of vertebrae, distance between eyes, length of pectoral fins, etc), thereby establishing the sequence of evolution of the genus. It was also during this process that I was exposed to GIS, since I had to create species distribution maps. This opened the door to what would become a major influence in my future career path.