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September 2021

Mohammed Boareki's PhD Defence

The presence of stressors such as disease or heat stress can lead to negative economic impacts in animal production by creating additional costs to producers for management and medication, weakened productive performance, or increased mortality. Genetic improvement for resistance traits is permanent and cumulative and, therefore, a viable solution for these issues in animal production systems. This thesis focuses on gastrointestinal parasite resistance, genetic resistance to scrapie, and heat tolerance in sheep.

Elise Lafleur Lariviere's MSc Defence

This thesis investigated the use of low-complexity, corn- and soybean meal-based diets in the nursery and as-sessed the effects of deoxynivalenol (DON) contamination and the effects of supplementation with immunomodulatory feed additives, such as a commercial anti-mycotoxin feed additive or fish oil on pig growth performance, gastrointestinal tract morphology, and immune system robustness. In the first week after weaning, both low and high DON-contaminated low-complexity diets resulted in reduced average daily gain and feed intake compared to pigs fed a high-complexity diet.

Claire Mindus' PhD Defence

The gut microbiota is a key regulator of the neuroimmune and neuroendocrine communication pathways of the brain-gut-microbiota axis. Disruption of the microbiome can lead to deterioration in gastrointestinal, neuroendocrine, immune functioning and may even contribute to the etiology and course of some psychiatric disorders. Some enteric gut bacteria, such as Lactobacillus species, have demonstrable beneficial effects on health and disease. Consequently, these organisms are used as probiotic supple-ments.

Brenda Christensen's Upcoming MSc Defence

Sows’ milk as a sole source of nutrients limits growth of piglets and fails to habituate piglets to pellet-ed, plant-based post-weaning diets. The aim of this thesis was to evaluate pre- and post-weaning nu-tritional strategies on piglet growth performance, gut development, and immune response. First, with respect to creep feed composition and form, piglets provided liquid milk replacer had the greatest body weight at weaning. Between weaning and one-week post-weaning, pigs provided commercial creep feed had the greatest reduction in specific activity of maltase.

Kerry Houlahan's PhD Defence

The sustainability and profitability of the dairy industry are at the forefront of current research. This is, in large part, due to increases in the costs of production and growing concern for the environmental impact of the dairy industry. Historically, traits related to improving feed efficiency have not been included in selection programs due to the high cost of phenotyping. With advancements in genomic selection and international collaboration including feed efficiency into selection, programs have become more feasible.

Midian Nascimento Dos Santos’ PhD Defence

The growth performance of broiler chickens has increased tremendously over the past 60 years due to improvements in nutrition, management strategies, and intense genetic selection. However, this increase in performance has been linked to undesirable conse-quences that affect the welfare and meat quality of fast-growing broiler chickens. Thus, there has been increasing interest in the use of slower-growing (SG) strains to mitigate problems associated with fast growth.

Emily Conlin's MSc Defence

The objectives for this study included: (1) determining the optimum dose of biochar to reduce enteric methane (CH4) emissions from beef cows (EXP1) and (2) determining whether biochar (Oregon Biochar Solution, White City, OR) supplementation can reduce CH4 emissions from cows on pasture (EXP2). In EXP1, pregnant beef cows (n=8) were used in a replicated 4 × 4 Latin square study with biochar supplemented at 0, 1, 2, or 3% of dry matter intake (DMI).

Vanessa Rotondo's MSc Defence

The objective of the study was to identify body dimensions that correspond to body weight and create a model to estimate calf body weight using linear body measurements, determine if geometric equations to estimate volumes improves model fit, and if early linear body measurements can predict weaning weight. 103 Angus-cross calves were measured weekly from the ages of 2-8 weeks of age using 19 linear body measurements.  Models were developed using machine learning approaches and multiple linear regression.

Laurence Cheng's MSc Defence

Poor efficiency of dietary fibre utilization limits pork production profit margins and environmental sus-tainability. This thesis research was to investigate stability of two processive endoglucanases, referred to as GH5-tCel5A1 and GH5-p4818Cel5_2A and overexpressed in the ClearColi® BL21 (DE3) cell. Three-dimensional models predicted presence of cysteine residues on the cellulases’ catalytic sites; and results of in vitro time course experiments further shown these cellulases were susceptible to auto-oxidation by air-borne O2 and were unstable.

ABSc Defence Survival Workshop

Attention ABSc Grad Students! Are you prepping for an upcoming M.Sc. or Ph.D. Defence this Fall? Here is your opportunity to learn more about Departmental specific procedures for your exam, hear study and exam tips from fellow upper year students, and practice answering questions! We are offering an ABSc specific graduate examination workshop for the second time. The workshop will be approximately 2 hours and broken into 2 parts: