Field season. It is the means by which the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) keeps its metaphorical finger on the pulse of Alberta’s many diverse species and ecosystems. Each spring and summer, the ABMI launches an enormous effort to monitor Alberta’s biodiversity across the province, from boreal bog to prairie pasture. Field season involves some [...]
How the ABMI successfully reaches all four corners of Alberta’s wilderness to collect biodiversity data. Before dawn, the early spring morning is tranquil. Mike Boucher, ABMI terrestrial field coordinator, carefully manipulates his truck down a narrow and winding logging road, which is still illuminated by the nearly full moon. Having left his temporary field base [...]
“I try to remind everybody to take a step back and look at the magnitude of what we’re doing. I think people on the ABMI staff take a lot of pride in that.” Colin Twitchell, Director, ABMI’s Monitoring Centre Every spring, in the final weeks of April, ABMI’s Monitoring Centre in Vegreville could be mistaken [...]
Oil sands extraction is booming in the province of Alberta. Much of the province’s oil sands resource, however, lies in the province’s northeast–territory that the boreal woodland caribou depends on for survival. Environment Canada recently released a recovery strategy for boreal woodland caribou, which are designated as “threatened” under the Canadian Species at Risk Act. [...]
Vimeo videos of the ABMI’s inaugural speaker’s series presentations are now available! Find links below on topics ranging from biodiversity management and climate change adaptation to ecological recovery monitoring of reclaimed lands… The ABMI’s Application Centre develops products and services that build on ABMI’s core capacity to monitor long-term broad-scale changes in biodiversity. These applications [...]
Northeastern Alberta is one of the most rugged and remote regions of our province. It is home to many wildlife and plant species, and contains a diversity of different habitats including peatlands and forests, as well as unexpected habitats like sand dunes. It is also an area of significant economic importance to Alberta due to [...]
Come and learn about “Better Environmental Management Through Monitoring”, otherwise known as: Land use planning that accounts for the location and needs of Alberta’s rare plants and animals. Forest management that adjusts to shifting forests in an age of climate change. The development of market-based systems to value wetlands that store and purify water. These [...]
Sometimes, monitoring biodiversity is a giant game of hide and seek. Some species are rare. Others are elusive. In both cases, these types of species can be extremely difficult to monitor. The ABMI’s monitoring system was designed to track changes in groups of common plants and animals, not specifically to follow the status of individual [...]