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OPUS: Open Ulethbridge Scholarship

Open ULeth Scholarship (OPUS) is the University of Lethbridge's open access research repository. It contains a collection of materials related to research and teaching produced by the academic community.

Self-archiving your research in OPUS is one way to meet Open Access policies of granting agencies. It is important to retain your final, post-peer-reviewed drafts for submission to OPUS, as this is often the only version publishers will allow to be archived. Click here for information on the U of L Open Access Policy.

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Recent Submissions

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    Signage and cultural identity: a linguistic landscape study of Lethbridge
    (Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of English, 2026) Tabiri, Josephine K.; University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science; O'Donnell Daniel Paul
    The study examines how multilingual signage and product displays in immigrant-owned and mainstream grocery stores in Lethbridge, Alberta, reflect cultural identity and acculturation. Using linguistic landscape analysis, the study compares six stores: Real Canadian Superstore, Save On Foods, Asian Supermarket, Umami Shop, Genesis Exotic Market, and Vestelyn Varieties. Data were collected through photographs, field notes, and a Ghanaian menu-based shopping exercise designed to test the availability and presentation of culturally specific ingredients across the stores. The analysis shows that the stores differ significantly in how they represent immigrant foods and audiences. Mainstream supermarkets offer only partial support for Ghanaian cooking, while immigrant-owned stores, especially Vestelyn Varieties, provide stronger access to authentic ingredients and culturally familiar retail environments. Asian Supermarket occupies a high position next to Vestelyn as compared to Genesis, which is the intermediate, while Umami Shop presents global foods through a curated, cosmopolitan frame. The study argues that linguistic landscapes in retail spaces do more than display language; rather, they index belonging, cultural maintenance, and different forms of acculturation in a mid-sized Canadian city.
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    Effects of urbanization on population connectivity of northern house wren (Troglodytes aedon)
    (Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Biological Sciences, 2026) Baral, Milan; University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science; Burg, Theresa
    This study analysed the genetic structure of the northern house wren (Troglodytes aedon) across urban and rural sites in Calgary and Lethbridge, Alberta. Using genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data generated by low-coverage whole-genome sequencing (lcWGS), this thesis aims to examine the effects of urbanization on population connectivity, genetic diversity, and local adaptation. Population genomic analyses revealed no detectable genetic differentiation among populations, indicating sufficient gene flow and high connectivity across the study area despite increasing urban development. Measures of genetic diversity were similarly consistent among populations, suggesting that urbanization has not measurably reduced genetic variation in this species. Although evidence for local adaptation was limited, a small number of candidate adaptive loci were associated with environmental variation, particularly land-cover characteristics and temperature, suggesting that localized environmental conditions may contribute to adaptive genetic responses. Overall, this study demonstrates that contemporary urbanization has limited effects on genetic connectivity in northern house wrens across southern Alberta. These findings suggest that the species' high dispersal ability and ecological flexibility have enabled populations to remain well connected despite landscape modification. More broadly, this research contributes to our understanding of how urbanization influences evolutionary processes and provides insights relevant to the conservation and management of wildlife in increasingly urbanized landscapes.
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    Colour-permuting automorphisms of Cayley graphs
    (Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Mathematics and Computer Science, 2026) Alimirzaei, Shirin; University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science; Morris, Dave W.
    A Cayley graph is a certain graph constructed from a group and a generating set. It has a natural edge-colouring that specifies the generators corresponding to each edge. An automorphism of a Cayley graph is colour-preserving if it preserves each colour class of edges, and colour-permuting if it permutes the colour classes. A Cayley graph is called CCA if every colour-preserving automorphism is affine, and strongly CCA if every colour-permuting automorphism is affine. The main goal of this thesis is to study colour-preserving automorphisms and colour-permuting automorphisms of Cayley graphs, with particular emphasis on abelian groups and complete Cayley graphs. For connected Cayley graphs on abelian groups, we prove that non-affine behaviour can occur only in the presence of a specific configuration of elements of order 4 in the connection set. Using local permutations induced by colour-permuting automorphisms, we obtain a complete characterization of connected abelian Cayley graphs that are CCA, and show that they are strongly CCA. Specifically, for a connected Cayley graph Cay(G; S) on an abelian group G, the graph is strongly CCA if and only if |G : ⟨{2s} ∪ {t ∈ S | 2t ≠ 2s}⟩| ≤ 2 for every element s ∈ S of order 4. As a consequence, we obtain a complete classification of non-CCA connected two-generator abelian Cayley graphs. We also study graphical regular representations (GRRs), Cayley indices, and normal Cayley graphs. We give a proof of the known fact that elementary abelian 2-groups admit a GRR exactly when their rank is not 2, 3, or 4. We also verify the Cayley indices of all finite groups and correct some previously published connection sets for certain generalized dicyclic groups. Using these results, we obtain an alternative proof of the classification of finite groups that admit a normal Cayley graph. Finally, we prove that the complete Cayley graph K_G is strongly CCA unless G ≅ Q_8 × B, where Q_8 is the quaternion group of order 8, and B is an abelian group of exponent 2. We also prove that every colour-permuting automorphism of a complete Cayley graph is the composition of a group automorphism and a colour-preserving automorphism.
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    A comparative analysis of body-part terminology in Na-Dene and Yeniseian languages
    (Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Indigenous Studies, 2026) Khefets, Shawn; University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science; Snoek, Conor
    This study investigates what reconstructed proto-forms for body-part terminology can reveal about the potential genetic connection between Dene and Yeniseian languages. The research examines whether consistent phonological correspondences and cognate patterns across both families indicate a shared linguistic ancestry. Anatomical vocabulary was chosen because of its resistance to borrowing and semantic stability over time (Pattillo 2021; Snoek 2015). Using the comparative method, proto-forms are reconstructed through successive historical stages: from regional proto-languages such as Proto-Apachean, Proto-Pacific-Coast-Dene, and Proto-Alaska-Dene to higher levels including Proto-Dene, Proto-Dene-Eyak, Proto-Na-Dene, and ultimately Proto-Dene-Yeniseian. The study builds on Vajda’s (2010) Dene-Yeniseian hypothesis and the updated Dene classification by Snoek, Stang & Rice (2022), expanding previous comparative work to include Yeniseian data from Ket as well as Proto-Yeniseian forms proposed by Vajda and Werner (2022). The findings contribute to ongoing discussions of long-range linguistic relationship and human prehistory across Siberia and North America.
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    Capacity of hoofed artiodactyl distal gut Bacteroides spp. to saccharify brown seaweed polysaccharides
    (Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry, 2026) Shearer, Anna Y.; University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science; Abbott, D. Wade; Patel, Trushar R.
    The ruminant gastrointestinal tract (GIT) contains a highly diverse microbial ecosystem in terms of both species and functional capacity. This community, whose evolutionary history is closely tied to that of their host, facilitates the digestion of recalcitrant plant materials through encoded carbohydrate active enzymes (CAZymes). The ability for ruminants to transform human-indigestible plant material into meat and milk have made them an invaluable asset to humans, with the demand for these products continually increasing in response to human population growth, affluence, and dietary preferences. The composition of the GIT microbiota is consequential for the host in a number of ways, including feed efficiency, health, and enteric methane emission. Thus, manipulating the structure of this community has been an area of interest for the livestock industry. Alternative feedstocks hold great potential in this regard. Macroalgae, or seaweeds, have been an attractive potential feed additive due to some species having anti-methanogenic properties. However, little is still known about the digestion of seaweed cell walls, which are distinct from those of terrestrial plants, by the GIT microbiota and seaweeds are commonly assumed to be non-digestible/non-nutritive. The discovery of CAZymes associated with seaweed polysaccharide saccharification in the human GIT microbiota suggests that these genes penetrated the mammalian gut microbiome via horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from seaweed-associated marine bacteria, and that this acquisition may have been an ancient event. Recent work in the Abbott Lab demonstrated that genes for CAZymes targeting carrageenan, a red seaweed polysaccharide, exist within the GIT microbiomes of geographically and taxonomically diverse ruminant and nonruminant animals. Similarly, cattle and Norwegian White lamb GIT microbiomes have been shown to saccharify alginate, a brown seaweed polysaccharide. These studies have cumulated in the proposal of the “latent traits hypothesis”, suggesting that seaweed-targeting CAZymes are ubiquitous in the animal GIT microbiota and persist in the absence of substrate, likely carried in the genomes of generalist bacterial members present in low abundance. This work raises questions about the evolution of dietary adaptations, timescales associated with such an acquisition, and the source of relevant GIT microbiota and CAZymes. Currently, it is unknown whether other ruminant species have the same plasticity in adapting to alginate, and if so, how this is accomplished. The thesis presented here investigates whether other ruminants and closely related pseudoruminants from order Artiodactyla harbor microorganisms and CAZymes capable of degrading brown seaweed polysaccharides. Fecal samples were collected from ruminants and pseudoruminants (n=1) at the Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo and Saskatoon Forestry Farm Park & Zoo, and selectively enriched for microorganisms capable of growth on alginate. Genomic analysis of fecal community metagenomic data and bacterial isolate DNA revealed an alginate utilization pathway that remains conserved amongst all bacterial isolates from 4 different ruminant host species; Masai giraffe, rocky mountain goat, bighorn sheep, and moose. CAZymes identified in this pathway, including BxPLX, a sequence from Bacteroides xylanisolvens (Bx) and potential member of a new polysaccharide lyase (PL) family, are predicted to be involved in the saccharification of alginate. The crystal structure of BxPLX was solved in complex with potential substrates. In addition, the activities of the other PLs from this Alginate Utilization Pathway (AUL) were characterized by thin layer chromatography (TLC), high-performance anion-exchange chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection (HPAEC-PAD), and NMR spectroscopy. The outcomes of this project will expand our knowledge of alginate-specific PLs, as well as provide new evolutionary and functional insights into the ability of ruminants and pseudoruminants to digest seaweed polysaccharides.