Here at the ABMI, we spend a lot of time thinking about large-scale changes to biodiversity and landscapes across Alberta. A core part of our work asks: what impacts does the human footprint of land use activities (like forestry, energy, agriculture) have in our province? Back in 2007, in our early days of data collection [...]
The following blog comes to us courtesy of Sydney Toni, summarizing a recent paper in Ecological Solutions and Evidence. Ideally, the information we collect to manage wildlife habitat is many things: high-resolution, consistent, and covering all areas of interest. The gold standard of habitat assessment, ground-based surveys, provides high-quality data at particular locations but can’t cover a [...]
Have you ever gone to visit your favorite Alberta lake for a swim, only to be turned away by a Blue-Green Algae Advisory? Every year, usually in July and August, many of our favorite lakes in Alberta become filled with blue-green algae, and we are told they are unsafe to swim in as a result. [...]
WildTrax is one major piece of software–your one-stop online platform for managing, storing, processing, sharing and discovering biological and environmental sensor data. In other words, WildTrax is a repository for data from autonomous recording units (ARUs), remote cameras, and other wildlife surveying methods from across Canada. In fact, WildTrax currently hosts over 66 million photos [...]
March 19 is Taxonomist Appreciation Day. Unsung and often misunderstood, taxonomists work in the scientific shadows yet perform research that’s critical to the monitoring and effective management of biodiversity. In this post, we hope to convince you that taxonomists not only deserve a day of appreciation, but are absolutely essential to understanding our natural world. [...]
Jenet Dooley defies labels (except for being a self-described “long-time swamp monster”). Yes, technically she is a wetland ecologist, but to Jenet, that title doesn’t adequately describe the interplay between the evolving nuances of ecology and the project management and coordination of monitoring programs. Like wetlands themselves, Jenet is hard to pin down, and she [...]
We are pleased to announce the release of version 1.0 of the Wetland Atlas of Alberta, a first-of-its-kind effort to present the results of our wetland monitoring programs in an integrated, interactive, Open-Access online report. This comprehensive new resource includes province-wide inventories of wetland habitat developed by the ABMI and data collected by the ABMI [...]
February 11 is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. To celebrate, all February, we’ll be sharing the stories of some of the many women+ at the ABMI who have shaped our organization with their experience, expertise, and dedication. We are inspired by their hard work and the legacy that they are leaving [...]