Newsletter of the Biological Survey of Canada (Terrestrial Arthropods)

News and Notes

Spread your word

Label data brief translated

Biodiversity research website

Benthic invertebrate monitoring

Activities at the Entomological Societies' meeting

Summary of the Scientific Committee meeting

The Quiz Page

Project Update: Insects of Keewatin and Mackenzie

Web Site Notes

Opinion Page: The real costs of insect identifications

Database updated

Arctic Corner

Arctic research notes

Funding for arctic studies

Selected future conferences

Quips and Quotes

List of Requests for Material or Information

Spread your word

This newsletter has a circulation of 462, following a recent focussing of the circulation list associated with an update of the Survey’s database of personnel. 438 recipients are individuals and the remainder are institutional libraries. Most subscribers (348) are in Canada, 55 reside in the U.S.A. and the balance (59) live in a variety of other foreign countries. Industry standards suggest that up to four people will read a single copy of a periodical. In addition, this newsletter is posted on the Survey website and therefore has the potential to reach many more people.

Your message could reach those people if you contribute an item for a future newsletter.

• This issue introduces a new section called the Opinion Page which is a forum for views and ideas of potential interest. See Steve Marshall’s take on addressing the costs (societal and otherwise) of developing the tools needed to make insect identifications simple and accurate.

Other types of contributions welcomed include:

• Longer articles about any aspect of systematic and faunistic entomology in Canada
• Short news items, announcements, descriptions of new publications or websites of interest to readers (News and Notes)
• News about studies of arctic insects (Arctic Corner)
• Announcements of future conferences, congresses, and annual meetings of interest to readers (Selected future conferences)

Please send submissions to the editor (see inside front cover).

Label data brief translated

The brief ‘Label Data Standards for Terrestrial Arthropods’ published in 2001 in response to concerns about the variable quality of the information on specimen labels and the standards for the labels themselves was recently translated into French.

The text of ‘Normes d’étiquetage pour les arthropodes terrestres’ is now available on the Survey’s website. See http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/bsc/french/frbriefs.htm. Paper copies (in limited quantities) are available from the Survey Secretariat.

Biodiversity Research Website

The Biodiversity group at the Northern Forestry Centre, Canadian Forest Service, Edmonton is pleased to announce the launch of their new Biodiversity Research Website. The site describes the Centre’s work in systematics and diagnostics, faunistics, insect ecology and management, effects of forest structure, and effects of forest practices. Information is also available on the arthropod collection and on the staff and their publications. The site is at http://nofc.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/biodiversity/

Benthic Invertebrate Monitoring

The EMAN Coordinating Office has been working with several organizations to implement a pilot project in 2003 on standardized aquatic invertebrate monitoring using a tiered aquatic invertebrate monitoring approach, employing standardized collection, data storage and analysis methods. A tiered approach will harmonize an educational component, the rapid bio-assessment approach, the Canadian Aquatic Bio-monitoring Network approach, and a rigorous biodiversity assessment approach. An assessment of other provincial and territorial aquatic invertebrate monitoring programs is currently being conducted. Contact eman@ec.gc.ca for more information.