Insect diversity @ McGill
Stories about our collection of three million unique little volumes of biodiversity, the people who build and use it, and the research we do. And the odd rumination upon the nature of science and scientists.
All content copyright Terry A. Wheeler 2011-2013, unless otherwise noted.
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Blogs and sites we like
- Arthropod ecology at McGill
- Beetles in the Bush
- Biocreativity
- Biodiversity in Focus
- Chris Raper's Blog
- Curator of Diptera's Blog
- flyobsession
- Northern Biodiversity Program
- Observations of a budding biologist
- The Bug Geek
- The Heads Lab
- The Natural Histories Project
- The Natural History Network
- three lines about six legs
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Author Archives: terry wheeler
A sense of place
(this is reposted from our Desert Ecology field course blog at desertecology.wordpress.com) You have to make a basic decision on every road trip: spend a little time in lots of places, or spend more time in fewer places. Like any … Continue reading
Pixels versus pages
After 17 years in the same office I was moved just before Christmas into a new office one floor up in my building. My initial annoyance at having to deal with moving soon gave way to the realization that I … Continue reading
Many ways forward: towards a Biota of Canada
In my last post I looked back at the history of an idea — documenting the biota of Canada. If we are going to embark on such an undertaking, a logical first step is to figure out how to get there, … Continue reading
Count all the things: towards a Biota of Canada
As the second anniversary of this blog approaches, I’ve been reading back through some of my older posts. In 2011, I talked about the fact that we don’t know how many species live here (“we” meaning “Canadians”; “here” meaning “in … Continue reading
Summarizing your research, with a catch
It’s important for scientists to be able to explain what we do to a broad audience, not just other scientists. After all, depending on the research we do and how we do it, those non-scientists are the people who pay … Continue reading
Posted in Research News
Tagged arctic, biodiversity, Diptera, science culture, thinking
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Two new papers: insects in harsh places
Two new papers on insect ecology from the Lyman group appeared this week: one in print, and one new paper in press. Amélie Grégoire Taillefer’s new paper in Restoration Ecology (see Grégoire Taillefer & Wheeler 2013 in Publications) is a … Continue reading
Natural history known, unknown, and assumed: a fly tale
My previous post was part of an exchange with Chris Buddle on whether taxonomists should describe new species without knowing their natural history. When many of the specimens upon which we base species descriptions are already long dead by the … Continue reading
Taxonomy with or without natural history?
My colleague Chris Buddle has asked an interesting and important question about taxonomic descriptions and natural history data. Specifically: Should taxonomists wait to describe a species until there are some details known about its natural history? Chris and I both … Continue reading
The best story ever
The winter term is off and running and I started teaching yesterday. I teach my first-year course in Evolution and Phylogeny every winter. And I love teaching this course. By the end of most of my lectures, when my throat … Continue reading
Flies meet World: 2012′s new species
I received my end-of-the-year summary for this blog from WordPress last week. Lots of numbers and stats. Yup. I’d be more excited if such things really mattered that much. Instead, let’s talk about some more interesting and relevant numbers from … Continue reading
