It’s here! The Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) is pleased to announce the launch of the new and improved www.abmi.ca.
The ABMI’s mission is “to track changes in Alberta’s wildlife and their habitats from border to border, and provide ongoing, relevant, scientifically credible information on Alberta’s living resources. For Alberta’s land-use decision makers. For Albertans.” The website was designed to deliver content of value and interest to support this mission; particular pages on the site are geared towards the practical needs of the province’s land-use and natural resource decision-makers, whereas others are intended to tell the story of Alberta’s rich natural heritage.
The site was also developed to be a a visual and interactive showcase for all things ABMI. Did you know that the ABMI has monitored over 2,564 species and identified over 480,900 specimens to date? Or that it has a Geospatial Centre where staff do extensive wall-to-wall (border to border) digital mapping of human footprint and land cover (amongst many other geomatics-related initiatives)? Abmi.ca provides access to our data, descriptions and content from our activities, products, and services, and information on various aspects of Alberta’s biodiversity–you’re invited to see for yourself.
Here are some key highlights of www.abmi.ca:
- Publications: Download hundreds of ABMI documents, including reports on the status of biodiversity, field protocols, and peer-reviewed publications. Search by document type, subject area and date.
- Data: Access a wide range of field data on species and their habitats, as well as GIS data on human footprint and land cover.
- Projects: Check out our current projects, which include rare plant and rare animal monitoring efforts, assessment of Alberta’s ecosystem services, ecological recovery monitoring of certified wellsites, caribou monitoring, and the evaluation of cumulative effects.
- Products & Services: Get to know some of the ABMI products such as our comprehensive representation of human footprint in Alberta or the species.abmi.ca website, which includes detailed, species-level analyses. Coming soon to abmi.ca will be information on the services provided by our new Bioacoustic Unit.
- News & Events: Find out the latest ABMI news and events, such as our recent Speakers’ Series “Better Environmental Management Through Monitoring.”
- Land Access: Read the guide for landowners, which covers the surveys and methods that we use, why we survey, how the ABMI strictly maintains the confidentiality of its survey sites, and an in-depth FAQ section.
- About Us: Discover the principles and values that guide our operations, our history, and some of the incredible people behind the ABMI.
- Biodiversity?: Explore different aspects of biodiversity, what it means, why it matters, and how climate change might alter the biodiversity we know in Alberta today.
- ABMI Videos: Our videos provide a more intimate view of who we are and what we do. Check out our overview video “The ABMI: Monitoring Biodiversity and Human Footprint Across Alberta”, a video on Alberta’s amazing lichens and how we monitor them, and more.
- What We Do: Learn more about the wide range of activities that the ABMI is involved in everyday. While biodiversity monitoring in the field (both trend and targeted monitoring) is at the heart of what the ABMI does, the Institute is heavily invested in taxonomic and geomatics research, the science of biodiversity monitoring, innovation in science communications, stakeholder engagement, data management, and demonstrating the value of biodiversity data through a variety of applied research efforts.
Please take some time to look around and explore the ABMI–there is a great deal more to discover!
For regular updates on the ABMI’s activities subscribe to our blog and newsletters. As always, we value your comments and feedback: abmiinfo@ualberta.ca.