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 [...]
A modified version of this post recently appeared as part of the ABMI’s regular feature in the Alberta Society of Professional Biologists’ newsletter, BIOS Quarterly. Here at the ABMI, we like to say that you manage what you measure—that the more we know about our living resources, the more likely we’ll be to responsibly manage [...]
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 [...]
The ABMI recently released a new report on the status of human footprint in Alberta. Depending on your particular interests, you were probably struck by different aspects of the report—maybe the fact that 78% of central Alberta is now under human footprint, or the fact that in the Athabasca Oil Sands Area, that number is [...]
Between 1999 and 2015, human activity in Alberta visibly converted over 23,000 square kilometres of native ecosystems into residential, recreational, or industrial landscapes, an area 3.5 times the size of Banff National Park. Feb 9 Update: This report received extensive coverage in the media. While some media outlets provided well-informed, balanced coverage, others resorted to [...]
The ABMI’s Caribou Monitoring Unit is on a roll! Fresh from the recent release of new research on the relationship between moose hunting, predatory wolves, and threatened woodland caribou, the CMU is at it again. This time, they’ve found a promising new way to prioritize the restoration of abandoned cutlines. Read on for the full [...]
Populations of the endangered woodland caribou are in decline, and the ABMI’s Caribou Monitoring Unit (CMU) at the University of Alberta is part of collaborative efforts to understand the problem and find sustainable solutions. New research—led by CMU manager Dr. Rob Serrouya, supported by Dr. Stan Boutin of the U of A / ABMI, and [...]
We all know that biodiversity, like exercise and broccoli, is good for us. For the most part, governments and land managers recognize this too. For example, the Alberta Government maintains a network of parks and protected areas (PPAs) throughout the province as part of its vision of sustainable resource development. Many Albertans use these spaces [...]