Guest blogger and ABMI collaborator Dr. Jessamyn Manson of the University of Alberta updates us on recent research into the relationship between wild bees and canola. At the peak of summer, your garden is probably buzzing with life! Alberta is home to nearly 300 documented species of wild bees, from large, charismatic bumble bees to [...]
Tucked away in the basement of the Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science at the University of Alberta is the ABMI’s Geospatial Centre and its team of Air Photo Interpreters. Kitted out in 3D glasses, they produce the most sophisticated and detailed land and vegetation cover data available for the province of Alberta. The data coming [...]
For the second year in a row, the ABMI has been blown away by your entries into our annual photo contest. Our goal of celebrating the beauty of Alberta’s biodiversity through story-telling photographs of species, habitats and human land use was easily achieved thanks to your participation. The 2015 contest included submissions from 48 contestants, with 69 [...]
Cattle producers are stewards of 9 million hectares of grassland in Alberta that support biodiversity (Kosinski 2012). However, the relationship between beef production and biodiversity is complex and poorly understood. We do know that cattle grazing can have both positive and negative effects on wildlife; for example, cows in riparian areas can degrade sensitive vegetation [...]
All development activities have an impact on the environment, from large-scale open pit mining, to drilling for oil and gas, to clearing land for building a house. In the case of your house, you might want it to stay around for a long time. But in the case of oil and gas wellsites, we’d rather [...]
The Bayne Lab at the University of Alberta and the ABMI’s Application Centre are pleased to announce a new partnership: The Bioacoustic Unit! Many people are concerned about their environment and the wildlife in it. However, for many wildlife species we don’t have the information we need to make informed decisions about natural resources and [...]
Some of the benefits provided by nature have a clear, recognized, and well-understood economic value (e.g., food and timber production), while others don’t (e.g., water purification, recreation). Continued provision of ecosystem services (especially those lacking clear economic value) and biodiversity in a growing province like Alberta is a big challenge for environmental managers and decision [...]
ABMI at the Royal Alberta Museum: Learning About Wetlands Through Aquatic Invertebrates from ABMI on Vimeo.
Beneath the surface of Alberta’s wetlands lives a diverse community of aquatic invertebrates. For most of us, the species that call wetlands home only become recognizable after individuals reach their adult phase, and take the form of flying insects like dragonflies and mosquitoes. Taxonomists, however, like those working in the ABMI’s Processing Centre at the Royal Alberta [...]