Study Systems

1. Sable Island horses

In 2012, I started a long-term collaboration with Philip McLoughlin from the University of Saskatchewan on the feral horses of Sable Island. All horses living on the island have been individually monitored since 2008 and a variety of traits have been recorded including survival, fecundity, dispersal patterns, social status, condition, body size and coat color. Hair samples and feces are available for most horses for DNA analyses, and in 2013 we initiated the large-scale collection of feces for research on the causes and consequences of individual-level variation in diet, hormones, gut parasites and microbial diversity. 

Examples of topics currently under investigation include the causes and consequences of variation in gut microbiome structure and function, mixed parasitic infections, and inbreeding depression.

Students and post-docs working on Sable Island horses at the University of Calgary typically have interests in molecular ecology, genetics, parasitology, or wildlife health, whereas students primarily interrested in topics not requiring genetic tools or data (eg. spatial ecology, behavioural ecology, demography, life history) are typically based in the lab of Philip McLoughlin at the University of Saskatchewan.  

Sable Island manuscripts to which our lab contributed:

18. Stothart M, Greuel RJ,  Edwards A, Emmrich PMF, McLoughlin P, Poissant J. Little evidence that beach pea (Lathyrus japonicus) toxins cause gait abnormalies in Sable Island feral horse (Equus ferus caballus). The Canadian Field-Naturalist. 

17. Ahn S, Redman E, Gavriliuc S, Bellaw J, Gilleard J, McLoughlin P, Poissant J. Mixed strongyle parasite infections vary across host age and space in a population of feral horses. Parasitology. 

16. Stothart MR, McLoughlin PD, Medill SA, Greuel RJ, Wilson AJ, Poissant J (2024) Methanogenic patterns in the gut microbiome are associated with survival in a population of feral horses. Nature Communications. 15:6012.

15. Colpitts J, McLoughlin PD, Poissant J (2024) Inbreeding depression in Sable Island feral horses  is mediated by intrinsic and extrinsic variables. Conservation Genetics. 25:1-15.

14. Stothart MR, McLoughlin PD, Poissant J (2023) Shallow shotgun sequencing of the microbiome recapitulates 16S amplicon results and provides functional insights. Molecular Ecology Resources. 23:549-564. 

13. Colpitts J, McLoughlin PD, Poissant J (2022) Runs of homozygosity in Sable Island feral horses reveal the genomic consequences of inbreeding and divergence from domestic breeds. BMC Genomics. 23:501.

12. Gavriliuc S, Reza S, Jeong C, Getachew F, McLoughlin PD, Poissant J (2022) Targeted genome-wide SNP genotyping in feral horses using non-invasive fecal swabs. Conservation Genetics Resources. 14:203-213.

11. Gavriliuc S, Stothart MR, Henry A, Poissant J (2021) Long-term storage of feces at -80°C versus -20°C is negligible for 16S rRNA amplicon profiling of the equine bacterial microbiome. PeerJ. 9:e10837.

10. Poissant J, Gavriliuc S, Bellaw J, Redman EM, Avramenko RW, Robinson D, Workentine ML, Shury TK, Jenkins EJ, McLoughlin PD, Nielsen MK, Gilleard JS (2021) A repeatable and quantitative DNA metabarcoding assay to characterize mixed strongyle infections in horses. International Journal for Parasitology. 51:183-192.

9. Stothart MR, Gruel R, Gavriliuc ST, Henry A, Wilson AJ, McLoughlin PD, Poissant J (2021) Bacterial dispersal and drift drive microbiome diversity patterns within a population of feral hindgut fermenters. Molecular Ecology. 30:555-571.

8. Regan CE, Medill S, Poissant J, McLoughlin PD (2020) Causes and consequences of an unusually male-biased adult sex ratio in an unmanaged feral horse population. Journal of Animal Ecology. 89:2909-2921.

7. Jenkins EJ, Backwell AL, Bellaw J, Colpitts J, Liboiron A, McRuer D, Medill S, Parker S, Shury T, Smith M, Tschritter C, Wagner B, Poissant J, McLoughlin PD (2020) Not playing by the rules: Unusual patterns in the epidemiology of parasites in a natural population of feral horses (Equus caballus) on Sable Island, Canada. International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife. 11:183-190.

6. Regan CE, Tuke L, Colpitts J, McLoughlin PD, Wilson AJ, Poissant J (2019) Evolutionary quantitative genetics of juvenile body size in a population of feral horses reveals sexually antagonistic selection. Evolutionary Ecology. 33:567-584.

5. Gold S, Regan CE, McLoughlin PD, Gilleard JS, Wilson AJ, Poissant J (2019) Quantitative genetics of gastrointestinal strongyle burden and associated body condition in feral horses. International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife. 9:104-111.

4. Cabrera D, Andres D, McLoughlin PD, Debeffe L, Medill SA, Wilson AJ, Poissant J (2017) Island tameness and the repeatability of flight initiation distance in a large herbivore. Canadian Journal of Zoology. 95:771-778.

3. Debeffe L, Poissant J, McLoughlin PD (2017) Individual quality and age but not environmental or social conditions modulate costs of reproduction in a capital breeder. Ecology and Evolution. 7:5580-5591.

2. Timonin ME, Poissant J, McLoughlin PD, Hedlin CE, Rubin JE (2017) A survey of the antimicrobial susceptibility of Escherichia coli isolated from Sable Island horses. Canadian Journal of Microbiology. 63:246-261.

1. Debeffe L, McLoughlin PD, Medill SA, Stewart K, Andres D, Shury T, Wagner B, Jenkins E, Gilleard JS, Poissant J (2016) Negative covariance between parasite load and body condition in a population of feral horses. Parasitology 143:983-997. 

Follow the project on twitter: @SI_Horses or Bluesky: @sihorses.bsky.social

2. Caribou conservation genetics

We study genomic and microbiome diversity in caribou to improve conservation and management of the species in Western Canada. This work is conducted in collaboration with the British Columbia Government, Jasper National Park, and First Nations.

3. Bighorn sheep

For my Ph.D. I worked on long-term studies of bighorn sheep at Ram Mountain, Alberta, and National Bison Range, Montana, with David Coltman, Marco Festa-Bianchet, Jack Hogg, and others. Current research in the lab includes studying fitness correlates of gut microbiome variation in the Ram Mountain population.