Acadia University’s newest Canada Research Chair is Dr. Mark Mallory, a seabird biologist formerly with Environment Canada’s Canadian Wildlife Service in Iqaluit, Nunavut. Dr. Mallory has been named CRC in Coastal Wetland Ecosystems. Through his research and work, he will promote the restoration and conservation of healthy coastal regions worldwide.

“Dr. Mallory is a significant addition to Acadia’s already outstanding group of faculty researchers working on environmental issues,” said Dr. David MacKinnon, Acadia’s Dean of Research and Graduate Studies. “His research into the effects of climate change on seabirds in Canada’s North is well regarded and our students and community will benefit from his enthusiasm for environmental preservation and conservation.”

Dr. Mallory earned his B.Sc. in Biology from Queen’s University in 1987 and both his M.Sc. (’91) and Ph.D. (‘09) in Biology from Carleton University. His masters research focused on loons and waterfowl in the Sudbury to Temagami region of Ontario and their responses to ecological changes in lakes and wetlands caused by acid rain. He joined the Canadian Wildlife Service in 1992, where his work ranged from limnology to aquatic invertebrates to small fish, waterfowl and loons. He subsequently helped develop some of the wildlife habitat suitability models used in Canada-U.S. negotiations on air quality. 

In 1999, Dr. Mallory and his wife Carolyn and their three children - Conor, Jessamyn and Olivia - relocated to Canada’s Arctic to open the Iqaluit office of Environment Canada, Canadian Wildlife Service.  As a seabird biologist, he studied the effects of climate change and pollution on Arctic seabird ecology.  It was during this time that he studied northern fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) for his Ph.D. 

Dr. Mallory built two research stations: one at Cape Vera (Devon Island), and one on a small island near Polar Bear Pass National Wildlife Area for Canadian Wildlife Service research and monitoring. Aside from seabird research, these sites have been the focus of studies on the effects of seabirds moving nutrients and contaminants from the ocean to coastal ponds and wetlands with collaborators at the universities of Ottawa, Alberta, and Queen’s.  During these expeditions, Mark and his colleagues also found dramatic declines in ivory gull (Pagophila eburnea) populations in Canada, which led to the species being listed as endangered in 2009. He and his colleagues and students also found new colonies of the threatened Ross’s gull (Rhodostethia rosea), and consequently Dr. Mallory serves as the National Recovery Team chair for these two species. 

“I’m looking forward to living in the Wolfville area and joining the core of research collaborators at Acadia,” said Dr. Mallory. “The move from Iqaluit to Wolfville will be a big adjustment for the whole family but I really hope to be able to continue my Arctic work and offer opportunities to other researchers at Acadia to be able to work in the North, while also building on Acadia’s existing coastal research in the Maritimes. I’m also looking forward to working with students and drawing on their energy and enthusiasm.”  

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