Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM)

This event was made possible thanks to the participation of our generous sponsors:

Québec-Océan's Annual Scientific Meeting 2025 took place from February 26 to 27 at the Hotel Universel in Rivière-du-Loup. It was preceded by Student Day on February 25-26.

This meeting was an opportunity to get together, review the latest discoveries, achievements and efforts of our members to understand and protect our oceans. We were privileged to listen to lectures by Déborah Benkort (UQAR) and Rémi Amiraux (Laboratoire international Takuvik - Université Laval), who shared their expertise and research perspectives. The student general assembly was held on Thursday, February 27, and provided an opportunity to present the student committee and their achievements over the year, and to discuss the positions available on the CÉ. Anecdotally for this year's event, a power outage brought our annual meeting to an abrupt end on the last day, leaving the students to hold their general assembly a cappella and by the light of the windows!

Some key figures for this ASM: 154 participants, 17 oral presentations (including 2 invited), nearly 75 poster presentations, 10 presentation prizes, and 3 days of memorable exchanges!

(Our apologies to Jimmy Enfru for the framing, bottom right, who was right there with us at the ASM!)

Student Day

As a prelude to the ASM, a day was offered to 54 student∙e∙s members to network, exchange ideas and attend development workshops. The day began with an icebreaker and networking activity organized by the Student Committee. The first workshop, “La communication orale en sciences”, was led by Émilie Dubois, founder of Impakt Scientifik. The Student Committee organized a social night in town to continue the exchanges and forge new links! The second workshop, “Using Artificial Intelligence in Science”, was led by Anne-Marie Duschesneau, from Université Laval's science and engineering library.

Guest speakers

Among the most eagerly awaited moments of the event were the presentations by our guest∙e∙s speakers, who were able to present their research and perspectives, broadening the audience's horizons:  

Another eagerly awaited moment was the end of the lecture period, which was unfortunately cancelled due to circumstances beyond our control. We were eagerly awaiting the presentations by our new collaborating member Lyne Morissette, marine mammal specialist (M Expertise Marine and associate professor at UQAR) and our new college co-researcher member David Pelletier, marine birds specialist, professor at Cégep de Rimouski and associate at UQAR. We left our participants eagerly anticipating a future meeting with our two speakers later this year in Quebec-Ocean.

Presentation contest 

Another highlight of this ASM 2025 was the presentation contest (oral and poster) offered to students who are members of Québec-Océan. New this year, to be eligible for the poster presentation contest, students had to submit a 3-minute video presentation of their poster! A total of 28 students rose to the challenge to enter the poster competition. Here are this year's award winners:

Oral presentation prizes

	Sponsered by  1st prize ex æquo Guillaume Barut (U.Laval), Tonya Burgers, Nicolas Schiffrin, Jean-Eric Tremblay, Christine Michel, Mathieu Ardyna Temporal nutrient changes in subsurface waters of an Arctic Ocean outflow: Nares Strait
	Sponsered by 1st prize ex æquo Maria Gheta (ISMER-UQAR), Louis-Philippe Nadeau Saturation tourbillonnaire du gyre de Beaufort
	Public's choice Sandrine Picotte (ISMER-UQAR), Souhir Marsit, Emmanuelle Chrétien, Clara Julliard, Raphaële Terrail, Elia Wagner-Beaulieu, Richard St-Louis Stress multiples dans un refuge thermique du saumon atlantique : quels sont les effets sur les premiers maillons de la chaîne trophique?

Jury's mention Louis Hupé (UQAR), Sandy Grégorio, Daniel Bourgault, Cédric Chavanne, Peter S. Galbraith Observations d'ondes internes solitaires près d'un quai et leur impact sur la navigation

My research in 180 seconds prize

	Sonagnon Olivier Tokpanou (U.Laval), Sara Pedro, Carie Hoover, Mathilde Lapointe St-Pierre, Tiff-Annie Kenny, Frédéric Maps Nunavik coastal and marine ecosystem modeling: Co-construction of food web structure and availability of country foods for Inuit communities
	Public's choice Soukaina Boujdi (UQAR), Pierre Cauchy, Loubna Benabbou AI Meets the Ocean: Predicting Ship Noise for Marine Mammals Protection

Poster presentation prizes

	Starting project prize Annaëlle Anquet (PhD, UQAR-ISMER), Thomas Burel, Gauthier Schaal, Fanny Noisette Macroalgues échouées: entre dérive, rétention et dégradation
	Sponsered by  MSc - with results prize Jasmine Therrien (UQAR-ISMER), Simon Létourneau, Jory Cabrol, Réjean Tremblay, Gesche Winkler S’alimenter en profondeur : variations spatio-temporelles des niches isotopiques des Boreomysis spp. dans le Saint-Laurent
	Sponsered by   PhD - with results prize Laury-Ann Dumoulin (UQAR-ISMER), Geneviève Parent, El Mahdi Bendif, Stephanie Kusch Comparing sedDNA extraction methods to optimize DNA detections from lake, coastal and open ocean sediments
	Canadian Meteorology and Oceanography Society prize (CMOS) Rosalie Shink (UQAR-ISMER), Louis-Philippe Nadeau, Bruno Tremblay, David Straub Une nouvelle approche pour diagnostiquer la circulation estuarienne double en Arctique

Public's choice - ex æquo Laísa Peixoto Ramos (UQAR), Antoine Biehler, Pieter van Beek, Pascal Bernatchez, Gwénaëlle Chaillou Does groundwater flow in winter? Radio and stable isotopes as tracers of groundwater in a subarctic beach

Public's choice - ex æquo Alexis Trinquet (UQAR), Mary Gamberg, Jane Kirk, Marlene Evans, Gerald Tetreault, Tyler Obediah, Amaya Cherian-Hall, Zhe Lu Emerging contaminants in the Arctic: uv absorbents in fish from Canadian arctic lakes

We would like to congratulate the winners and thank the members of the jury, our Student Committee, the people involved in organizing and carrying out the various activities, the presenters and trainers, our sponsors and above all the participants for making this event a success!