Newsletter of the Biological Survey of Canada (Terrestrial Arthropods)

Project Update - Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands

Terry A. Wheeler

Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University, Macdonald Campus, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, H9X 3V9

The Grasslands Project continues to gather momentum (I will resist the use of prairie fire metaphors). Since the last Project Update (Newsletter of the Biological Survey of Canada (Terrestrial Arthropods) 20 (1): 14-15) there has been progress on various aspects of the Project.

Grasslands Prospectus
The Grasslands Prospectus will soon be posted on the Project web page. This document is the framework for ongoing development of the Grasslands Project and describes the scope, objectives, rationale and anticipated products of the project. The prospectus also contains an overview of grassland habitats in Canada and a brief review of research to date on the arthropods of Canadian grasslands.

Grasslands Publication Planning
The first major product of the Grasslands Project will be a volume entitled (tentatively) Arthropods of Canadian grasslands: ecology and interactions in grassland habitats. The focus of the chapters in the volume will be the ecological relationships and interactions of arthropods in selected grassland habitats. This ecological approach is intended as a complement to the taxonomic inventory-based approach such as that taken in the Biological Survey of Canada’s Insects of the Yukon. Taxonomic inventories and species level analyses will be the focus of a planned subsequent volume arising from this project. A final list of chapters and authors for the ecological volume is currently being compiled. For more information on this volume please contact Terry Wheeler.

Grasslands Symposium 2002
Some of the chapters to be published in the above volume will be presented as invited papers at a formal symposium on Ecology of Arthropods in Canadian Grasslands at the Joint Annual Meeting of the Entomological Societies of Canada and Manitoba, to be held in Winnipeg, Manitoba on 08 October 2002. As for the volume described above, the focus of the symposium will be ecological and habitat based studies on selected grasslands or taxa. Although some symposium contributors have already been confirmed, final organization continues. For more information contact the symposium organizer, Terry Wheeler.

Ongoing Research and Fieldwork
A list of recent and ongoing research projects in Canadian grasslands is maintained on the Grasslands Project web page and summaries of recent research are published annually in the Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands Newsletter.

Field research by individual collaborators continues on several taxa in grassland sites across the west. In addition to individual fieldwork, a series of annual group field meetings in key grassland habitats is planned. The first of these meetings was organized by Rob Roughley and Kevin Floate at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada substation near Onefour, Alberta in 2001. A detailed summary of the field meeting will appear in the next issue of the Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands Newsletter (Issue 8). The tentative habitat for the 2002 collecting expedition is the tallgrass prairie of southern Manitoba. This trip will provide the opportunity to collect in one of the most geographically restricted, threatened and perhaps the most species-rich of Canada’s grassland types. In addition, a variety of other grassland habitats (oak savanna, fescue prairie) are within driving distance of the tallgrass prairie sites. For more information on this year’s field trip contact Rob Roughley (Rob_Roughley@umanitoba.ca)

Collecting at Onefour (photo by J.D. Shorthouse)