All posts in Data

Seeking (and finding!) ALPHA

Content for this post, by Evan DeLancey and Kurt Illerbrun, is adapted from an ABMI feature that recently appeared in the Alberta Society of Professional Biologists’ newsletter, BIOS. If you’re interested in learning more about ALPHA, the ABMI will be presenting a webinar on the topic on February 28—register for free here. One of the [...]

Easy as 1-2-3, but 1-2-3-4-5 might be better: How long should a point count take?

Péter Sólymos, a statistical ecologist with the ABMI, Boreal Avian Modelling project, and the U of A, brings us a guest post about his team’s new paper on point count methods for sampling boreal birds. Humans attach more value to rare things, but in conservation biology, rarity often implies an elevated risk. For example, smaller [...]

Big Changes in the Boreal: New Model Explores the Effects of Climate Change in Alberta’s North

A new predictive model using ABMI data suggests that Alberta’s boreal mixedwood forest could decline by at least 50% in the next 100 years due to climate change and wildfire. Change is a funny thing. Sometimes it’s blatantly obvious. Other times, like the old fable of the frog and the boiling water, you only see [...]

Mapping Portal

New Data & Analytics Portal Launched!

Albertans have a new resource at their fingertips that provides detailed information on hundreds of Alberta’s plant and animal species. Welcome to the ABMI’s new online Data & Analytics Portal—a one-stop-shop that provides easy access to our extensive biodiversity-related data, reports, and maps. A key part of the Data & Analytics Portal is the ABMI [...]

Introducing the ABMI’s Ecosystem Services Mapping Portal

Natural ecosystems provide many benefits—services like clean drinking water, timber, and productive harvests. Each of these “ecosystem services” is the product of complex interactions among species, landscapes, and people. This complexity also means that ecosystem services can be difficult to measure and assess. Because their value is hard to quantify, ecosystem services may be ignored in [...]

Bear attacks camera

Nerds in the Forest: Using Computer Models to Address Remote Camera Misfires

We’re excited to introduce a new publication series: ABMI Science in Progress. Under this banner, we’ll release updates on work that’s currently taking place in the ABMI’s Science Centre—work that’s raw and will continue to evolve, but which we think our readers will find interesting in the meantime. This is the first installment, with the [...]

Say ‘Cheese’! ABMI Implements New Monitoring Protocols Using Camera Traps

Gathering reliable measurements of animal populations is a long-standing challenge for wildlife biologists around the world. Estimating population size and density requires researchers to count individual specimens; this is an especially difficult task when working with species that move (sometimes over large geographic ranges) or live in difficult-to-traverse landscapes, like Alberta’s Rocky Mountains or its [...]

Bogs and Bison: My Week in Zama City – A Field Technician’s Experience of the 2014 Summer Shifts

There is a moment of panic that comes when you sink through a soft spot in a cattail marsh. Your first thought is, “how deep am I sinking this time?” followed by, “hopefully this water doesn’t go over my waders.” Your next thoughts are focused on getting out: “I’m only in up to my belly-button, [...]