SFU Biological Sciences

Congratulations to Aaron Dhanda, PhD alumnus from Julian Guttman's Lab, whose photo "The mitotic meridian" is a finalist in the 2026 NSERC Science Exposed Photo Contest!

Take a moment and follow the link to vote for Aaron's photo!: https://ow.ly/q5KM50Zbo1Z

It’s World Bee Day! If you are concerned about pollinator declines, there’s something you can do: plant flowers. Professor Elizabeth Elle of Biological Sciences at SFU is studying backyard biodiversity, and in a study of just nine gardens in 2025 documented 130 species of pollinators!

Clockwise from top left, popular flowers include:
🌻Coreopsis (from the aster family, with the specialist sunflower bee, Melissodes microsticta)
🌸 Crab apple (from the rose family, with a blue orchard mason bee, Osmia lignaria)
🪻Alliums (which supported 31 species of pollinators in the study! shown with a miner bee, Andrena prunorum).
🐝 And look for nests! 70% of our bee species nest in the ground, including this furrow bee, Halictus rubicundus. One female is about to enter the nest she dug in soil, and you may spot a second peeking out of a hole below!

Fascination of Plants Day May 2026 🌱🍀

Ferns reproduce using spores instead of seeds! You can spot them if you flip a leaf over. Those tiny brown clusters are sporangia (arrow), little capsules packed with spores.

When they’re ready, they snap open and act like a microscopic spring, catapulting spores into the air. Each one has the potential to grow into a new fern.

Next time you’re out for a walk take a closer look underneath a fern leaf – you’re seeing plant reproduction in action!

Image and text by Miranda Meents

SFU Biological Sciences PhD graduate Ramis Rafay, with postdoctoral fellow Eric Jones, worked under the supervision of professor Jane Fowler and physics professor David Sivak to develop new methods to estimate how organisms disperse. Their research improves the accuracy of measuring movement in complex ecological communities and enhances understanding of processes important to biodiversity, ecosystem health, and conservation.

Elegant new ways to measure movement in ecological communities How can the ‘elegant’ logic of physics be applied to the ‘messy’ reality of biology? A team of Simon Fraser University (SFU) scientists have used their interdisciplinary expertise to develop new, more accurate ways to estimate how groups of living organisms disperse.

Don't miss out! Be sure to visit our Mesozoic Garden and step back into the age of dinosaurs🦕🌿

Congratulations to SFU Biological Sciences professor Miranda Meents who has received a 2025 SFU Excellence in Teaching Award for her innovative teaching and leadership within the teaching community. https://ow.ly/VGqZ50YMZst

On Friday April 10th the Biology Department gathered to celebrate a Botanical Drawing Showcase featuring the work of the students in BISC 337-Plant Biology.

"I was extremely proud of the students, who have worked hard all term on their scientific observation, drawing and communication skills in lab. Their efforts have really paid off, as the staff, students, faculty and friends of the department in attendance repeatedly told me how impressed they were with the skill and knowledge displayed by the students in their drawings."
- Dr. Miranda Meents

Congratulations to everyone for their amazing work!

Read more on our Kudos page: https://www.sfu.ca/biology/news-events/kudos/2026-drawing-bisc337.html

UN World Water Day, established in 1993, celebrates water and inspires action to tackle the global water crisis. A core focus of World Water Day is to support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030.

The 2026 World Water Day campaign – called ‘Where water flows, equality grows’ – focuses on safe water and sanitation as human rights and critical enablers of gender equality. While the global water crisis affects everyone, lack of safe drinking water and sanitation disproportionally affects women and girls. The UN proposes a transformative, rights-based approach to solving the water crisis for a healthier, more prosperous, gender-equal future that will benefit us all.

For more information: https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/water-and-gender, https://www.un.org/en/observances/water-day, https://www.unwater.org/our-work/world-water-day

A huge thanks to Stella Lin and Joyce Wong MSc candidates in Jane Fowler’s lab, for creating the images below!

Sixth Annual Biology World Poetry Day Contest
It is our great pleasure to announce the winners of the sixth annual Biological Sciences Poetry Contest. We would like to thank all the contributors. There are talented poets in our department, and this was a delightful task for the outreach and engagement committee!

First prize – "Gameto-Fight Song" by Audrey Kemp (BISC Undergraduate student)
Second prize - "In honour of Bombus terristris" by Amaris Hackney (Lab Manager, Salmon Watersheds Lab)
Third prize – “Thermally Primed" by Audrey Kemp (BISC Undergraduate student)
On behalf of the Outreach and Engagement Committee congratulations to the winners!

Please read the poems below.
https://www.sfu.ca/biology/news-events/kudos/2026-bisc-poetry-contest.html

Stella Lin (MSc candidate in the Fowler-lab) won First Place and People's Choice in the 2026 Faculty of Science Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition for "Characterization of psychrophilic microbial communities in small-scale decentralized anaerobic digestion for sanitation in the remote arctic"! Congratulations, Stella!!!! Way to go!!!!
https://www.sfu.ca/biology/news-events/kudos/2026-lin-3mt.html