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 [...]
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 [...]
Want to earn points for doing good things for the environment? Play Eco-earner, an ecosystem services game that promotes the concept of earning points for demonstrating good environmental management, using game principles and technology. When we think of ecosystem services we often focus on the biophysical aspects of the environment. However, an important aspect of [...]
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 [...]
Videos of the presentations are now available here! A version of this story originally appeared in Alberta Innovates – Bio Solution’s Newsletter, written by Elisa Valade and published October 1, 2015. On September 16, 2015, the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) hosted their first Ecosystem Services & Biodiversity Science Symposium: an engaging series of presentations [...]
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 [...]
No one likes the idea of wildlife being trapped between a rock and a hard place, but new research is showing that this may be the situation faced by bumblebees in warming temperatures. A study published recently in the journal Science [1] has drawn attention to the negative impacts of climate change on bumblebees in [...]
Conservation offsets are a legitimate and effective tool that governments across the world have used to support responsible resource development and environmental outcomes. Conservation offsets are the “measurable conservation outcomes that result from actions designed to compensate for significant residual adverse environmental impacts arising from development”[1]. Often offset programs require developers to first avoid, reduce [...]