Phone: 1-418-656-2131
Fax: 1-418-656-2043
Email: Sebastien.Roy@bio.ulaval.ca

Life in extreme environments is certainly the most interesting subject for me in ecology. I had the chance to link my love of cold to this passion to extreme habitats in my M.Sc. which is supervised by Warwick F. Vincent. The topic of my thesis is on the dark wintertime microbial ecology of an Arctic continental shelf ecosystem. My field work was during the overwintering period of the CASES 2003-2004 project. My objectives were to measure the state, structure and dynamics of the picoplankton and the nanoplankton community in Franklin Bay (south of Beaufort Sea) during the arctic wintertime and see if the bacterial community was limited by the supply of nutrients (bottom-up control).

Field work experience in the Arctic took a large place during my master study. I went twice to Ward Hunt Island (northern Ellesmere) to work on a study about the microbial life on an Arctic ice shelf. I went twice to the CCGS Amundsen during the overwintering to collect samples for CASES 2003-2004. I returned to the Amundsen for the first ArcticNet theme 2 cruise. For this latter project, I sampled rivers, lakes and ponds nearby villages of northern Quebec province. My master degree is ending soon and I hope to pursue research on life in cold habitats and see how climate change will affect the dynamic of all living organism in the polar region.