New Assistant Professor Viktoria Wagner is a botanist who studies grasslands and non-native plants.
When Viktoria Wagner took her first botany course during her undergraduate degree, it was love at first flora. Now, two graduate degrees and a decade of international research later, Wagner has joined the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta as an assistant professor.
A plant ecologist, Wagner's researches two main areas: biodiversity in grasslands and ecoinformatics. Her grasslands research is rooted in field sampling, assessing plant diversity and conservation value. "Over the last few decades, agriculture has caused a strong decline in grassland habitat across the globe," explained Wagner. "I'm trying to document the diversity that grasslands harbour and try to understand how humans and environmental factors affect their diversity and ecological functioning."
The second focus-ecoinformatics-is an emerging field of research that uses programming and data archives to understand the effects of land-use and environmental factors on diversity and ecological processes. Wagner's case, investigating the impact of non-native plants in different ecosystems. "Since many non-native plants can have harmful effects on the environments and the economy, it is useful to have an understanding of how they arrive and spread in a new region," said Wagner. She recently completed a project studying non-native plants in forests across Europe before turning her attention westward.
Now in Alberta, Wagner will begin fieldwork in the province this summer, looking at non-native plants in the region. "Currently, there is no catalog of non-native plants in Alberta that includes both a list of species as well as the status, such as invasive, naturalized, or casual," explained Wagner. "I want to understand where they occur and the effect that they have on native ecosystems."
Bringing programming to plants
Wagner is also looking forward to teaching an introductory course in R programming in the fall. It's a tool necessary for many biology students, including those interested in ecoinformatics, a field that has exploded of the last few years. With huge, open-access datasets at the disposal of scientists around the world, developing the skills to manipulate and process these large quantities of data opens up doors for new discoveries and even new fields.
"Programming is a skill that more and more biologists need," said Wagner, who is focused on developing scientists who are prepared to meet the needs of today's changing world. "And it's okay if you don't think programming is your thing or if you haven't tried it before. It might be more appealing to you than you think."