“Spending your life staring through a microscope, obsessing over tiny features on tiny things that no one cares about but you.” If you think this is the life of a taxonomist, you’re not entirely wrong – but you’re overlooking a key truth. Without taxonomists we wouldn’t have labels for species or a common language to [...]
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ABMI Releases First Ever Comprehensive Report on Biodiversity in the Athabasca Oil Sands Area
Today, Thursday December 5, 2013, the ABMI released the report: The Status of Biodiversity in the Athabasca Oil Sands Area. This report contains the first ever comprehensive analysis on the status of Alberta’s species in the Athabasca Oil Sands Area (AOSA). With a range of intensive activities occurring on the AOSA land base – from [...]
New Chairs Program Invests in Biodiversity Conservation Research – ABMI’s Stan Boutin Awarded
The problems are clear. Due to human activity, Alberta faces a series of biodiversity-related challenges. We see declining caribou populations, fragmented landscapes, and increasing pressure on Alberta’s rare plants and animals. Finding solutions to these problems is part of the mandate of the newly minted Alberta Biodiversity Conservation (ABC) Chair program, launched at the University [...]
The ABMI Contributes to Boreal Forest Research
ABMI was heavily involved in the 16th International Boreal Forest Research Association (IBFRA) conference held at the Shaw Conference Center in Edmonton from October 7-10, 2013. Given that the ABMI is a pan-provincial biodiversity monitoring agency, much of its monitoring activity takes place in the Boreal Region of Alberta. As a result, the ABMI has [...]
New Paper by ABMI Scientist – Humans as an Evolutionary Force: How We Shape Wildlife Behaviour
By: Tyler Muhly I must admit I’ve never blogged before, and the majority of my writing experience is of the technical kind, so please bear with me here. It’s not hard to imagine how humans influence the behaviour of other wildlife species. Human hunting has occurred for centuries, and human activities on the planet are [...]
Deer, Deer Everywhere! Camera Trapping Update
The ABMI’s camera-trapping project led by Ecologist Cole Burton continues to run well with masses of photos coming in. Check out the new gallery dedicated to some lovely shots taken with the camera traps. The project will continue until early fall. Watch this space for updates and more photos. Remember to cast your vote on [...]
Website Updates: Aquatic Invertebrate Protocol Update, “Is a picture worth a thousand species?”
Aquatic Invertebrate Protocol Update An updated protocol for processing aquatic invertebrates has been posted on the ABMI website thanks to Rob Hinchliffe, Lab Coordinator, Aquatic Invertebrate Taxonomist. The document also includes valuable information for aquatic invertebrate identification. Is a picture worth a thousand species? The Science Centre’s Dr. Erin Bayne peer-reviewed article “Is a picture [...]
Camera Pilot Project
The ABMI is currently exploring an exciting new way to monitor mammals throughout the province—camera trapping! Since the ABMI’s inception we have monitored mammals through winter tracking—walking a 10 km long transect near each ABMI site during appropriate snow conditions and identifying any snow tracks we encounter.