University of Guelph

About: University of Guelph is a education organization based out in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Gene. The organization has 26542 authors who have published 50553 publications receiving 1715255 citations. The organization is also known as: U of G & Guelph University.

New Generation, Great Expectations: A Field Study of the Millennial Generation

Abstract: This study investigated the career expectations and priorities of members of the “millennial” generation (born in or after 1980) and explored differences among this cohort related to demographic factors (i.e., gender, race, and year of study) and academic performance. Data were obtained from a national survey of millennial undergraduate university students from across Canada (N = 23,413). Data were analyzed using various multivariate techniques to assess the impacts of demographic variables and academic achievement on career expectations and priorities. Millennials placed the greatest importance on individualistic aspects of a job. They had realistic expectations of their first job and salary but were seeking rapid advancement and the development of new skills, while also ensuring a meaningful and satisfying life outside of work. Our results suggest that Millennials’ expectations and values vary by gender, visible minority status, GPA, and year of study, but these variables explain only a small proportion of variance. Changing North American demographics have created a crisis in organizations as they strive to recruit and retain the millennial generation, who purportedly hold values, attitudes, and expectations that are significantly different from those of the generations of workers that preceded them. A better understanding of the Millennials’ career expectations and priorities helps employers to create job offerings and work environments that are more likely to engage and retain millennial workers. This is a large-sample study that provides benchmark results for the millennial generation, which can be compared to results from other generational cohorts, and to millennial cohorts in the future as they progress through their life-cycle. This is one of the few studies that examines demographic heterogeneity within the millennial cohort.

Influence of Phylogeny on Fungal Community Assembly and Ecosystem Functioning

Abstract: Ecology seeks to explain species coexistence and its functional consequences, but experimental tests of mechanisms that simultaneously account for both processes are difficult. We used an experimental mycorrhizal plant system to test whether functional similarity among closely related species (phylogenetic conservatism) can drive community assembly and ecosystem functioning. Communities were constructed with the same number of fungal species, but after 1 year of growth, realized species richness was highest where the starting species were more distantly related to each other. Communities with high realized species richness also stimulated plant productivity more than those with low realized species richness. Our findings suggest that phylogenetic trait conservatism can promote coexistence because of reduced competition between distinct evolutionary lineages and enhance ecosystem function because of functional complementarity among those same lineages.

Extension of Drosophila lifespan by overexpression of human SOD1 in motorneurons

Abstract: Reactive oxygen (RO) has been identified as an important effector in ageing and lifespan determination1,2,3. The specific cell types, however, in which oxidative damage acts to limit lifespan of the whole organism have not been explicitly identified. The association between mutations in the gene encoding the oxygen radical metabolizing enzyme CuZn superoxide dismutase (SOD1) and loss of motorneurons in the brain and spinal cord that occurs in the life-shortening paralytic disease, Familial Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (FALS; ref. 4), suggests that chronic and unrepaired oxidative damage occurring specifically in motor neurons could be a critical causative factor in ageing. To test this hypothesis, we generated transgenic Drosophila which express human SOD1 specifically in adult motorneurons. We show that overexpression of a single gene, SOD1, in a single cell type, the motorneuron, extends normal lifespan by up to 40% and rescues the lifespan of a short-lived Sod null mutant. Elevated resistance to oxidative stress suggests that the lifespan extension observed in these flies is due to enhanced RO metabolism. These results show that SOD activity in motorneurons is an important factor in ageing and lifespan determination in Drosophila.

The Marine Microbial Eukaryote Transcriptome Sequencing Project (MMETSP): Illuminating the Functional Diversity of Eukaryotic Life in the Oceans through Transcriptome Sequencing

Abstract: Current sampling of genomic sequence data from eukaryotes is relatively poor, biased, and inadequate to address important questions about their biology, evolution, and ecology; this Community Page describes a resource of 700 transcriptomes from marine microbial eukaryotes to help understand their role in the world's oceans.