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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- Arthropod ecology at McGill
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- flyobsession
- Northern Biodiversity Program
- Observations of a budding biologist
- The Bug Geek
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- three lines about six legs
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Tag Archives: arctic
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
I like the Tombstone Mountains
The Dempster Highway is a 750 kilometer, gravel, narrow, bumpy, dusty, muddy, rutted washboarded road with one gas station at the beginning, one in the middle and a couple near the end. It runs from near the Klondike gold fields … Continue reading
Posted in Lab and Field News
Tagged arctic, Northern Biodiversity Program, science culture
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Drowning in Diptera
Sometimes I think there might be such a thing as too much data. I expanded my research program a few years ago from just taxonomy and systematics, into community ecology of insects. This meant I had to change the way … Continue reading
Posted in Lab and Field News
Tagged arctic, collection, Diptera, ecology, Northern Biodiversity Program, taxonomy
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My favorite collecting spots. Part 2
I’m continuing my Earth Day Weekend series on places that have made an impression on me while I’ve been out doing fieldwork. Aulavik National Park, Banks Island, Northwest Territories. This is a recent one, so it’s fresh in my mind, … Continue reading
More than ten reasons flies are great. Part II
Diptera are fascinating insects – diverse, bizarre, economically and medically important – but underappreciated by most people other than dipterists. We launched this series in an earlier post with a selection of five randomly selected reasons flies are great. In … Continue reading
Posted in In the Collection
Tagged arctic, Braulidae, Chloropidae, Diopsidae, Diptera, ecology, natural history
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Conference round-up
Conferences are a great opportunity to let colleagues know about the work we’re doing, and also to see what research is going on in other labs. They’re a chance to catch up with colleagues that we usually only interact with … Continue reading
Notes from the field – Banks Island, NT
Our most remote field site in 2011 was Green Cabin, in Aulavik National Park on Banks Island. Five Northern Biodiversity Program team members (Terry Wheeler and Anna Solecki from the Lyman, Doug Currie, Brad Hubley and Ruben Cordero from the … Continue reading
Chasing northern insects
Several Lyman people spent much of the summer in the Canadian arctic as part of the Northern Biodiversity Program. We collected flies, ichneumonid wasps, spiders and beetles to examine ecological patterns in arthropod communities across the north, long-term change in … Continue reading
Posted in Lab and Field News
Tagged arctic, Diptera, fieldwork, Northern Biodiversity Program
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