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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Tag Archives: biodiversity
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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Urban biodiversity and backyard discoveries
Not all new discoveries in biodiversity happen in the wild places. In this guest post from Stéphanie Boucher, Curator of the Lyman Museum, we meet two little surprises from an urban backyard garden in the middle of Montreal. Phytomyza petoei … Continue reading
Setting priorities – so many questions, so little time
My post a few days ago about my project on arctic flies generated an interesting question from my colleague Brian Brown. With so many possible projects, and so many unknown species, how do I prioritize? Brian and I specialize on … Continue reading
Posted in Research News
Tagged biodiversity, Chloropidae, Diptera, ecology, new species, taxonomy
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how many species?
One of the fundamental rules of running a business is that you have to keep track of your inventory. If you don’t know what’s in the warehouse, or who works for you, you’re not going to get very far as … Continue reading
“why so many specimens?”
I was giving a tour of the museum last week to some alumni who were back on campus for Homecoming and somebody asked me that question. The Lyman Museum has in the neighborhood of three million specimens, but we have … Continue reading
