Terry
A. Wheeler Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University,
Macdonald Campus, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, H9X 3V9
In recent
months parts of western Canada have experienced drought, plagues of
grasshoppers, a beef backlog and forest fires that threaten to convert
considerable portions of southwestern Canada’s forests into new grassland.
Despite these upheavals, progress on the Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands
project continues on several fronts.
Grasslands
Subcommittee
Turnover in the membership of the BSC Scientific Committee has led to
gradual depletion in the membership of the Grasslands Subcommittee over the
past 2–3 years. Accordingly, a membership review was held at the April
2003 meeting of the subcommittee and some new members appointed. Because
many of the people actively involved in grasslands research are not
necessarily members of the Scientific Committee, a decision was made to
include both "internal" and "external" members on the
subcommittee in order to ensure broad regional and disciplinary
representation. The current membership of the Grasslands Subcommittee is as
follows: K.D. Floate (Co-chair), T.A. Wheeler (Co-chair), V.M. Behan-Pelletier,
R.A. Cannings, J.M. Cumming, H.V. Danks, J.-F. Landry, D.J. Larson, R.E.
Roughley, G.G.E. Scudder, J.D. Shorthouse and F.A.H. Sperling.
Grasslands
Publications
The first volume arising from the Grasslands project will be entitled Arthropods
of Canadian Grasslands: Ecology and Interactions in Grassland Habitats,
and will be edited by T.A. Wheeler, R.E. Roughley and H.V. Danks. Sixteen
chapters have been confirmed to date, with authors still being sought for
one or two additional chapters. The volume will be loosely divided into
three sections. Introductory chapters will describe the attributes of major
grassland types in Canada, and present an overview of climate, weather,
postglacial history and abiotic characteristics of Canada’s grasslands. A
second set of chapters will examine ecology and interactions of particular
target taxa in selected habitats (The mite fauna in grassland soils,
Diversity of spiders in tallgrass prairies, Aquatic Hemiptera in grassland
ponds, Ecology of dytiscid beetles in prairie ponds, Trophic guilds of
Diptera in xeric Yukon grasslands, Gall-forming arthropods and their
distributions in overlap and hybrid zones of cottonwoods on the Canadian
prairie, The component community of arthropods associated with cynipid galls
on wild roses, Grassland insects as food for birds). The final section of
the volume will include chapters on the use of grassland arthropods in
habitat management or as indicators (Use of fire as a conservation and
management tool in tallgrass prairie, Arthropods in identifying hotspots for
grassland conservation, Leafhoppers as indicators of grassland habitat
types, Temporal changes in the grassland grasshopper fauna), together with a
concluding overview chapter. Publication of this volume is planned for late
2004.
In addition
to progress on Volume 1, co-ordinators were appointed to begin identifying
potential authors and chapters for future volumes. Kevin Floate is the
co-ordinator for a volume on arthropods and altered grassland ecosystems,
which will be the next major publication of the Grasslands Project. Jeff
Cumming and Felix Sperling will co-ordinate planning for the final volume on
biodiversity of arthropods in Canadian grasslands.
2003 Grasslands
Project Key Site Field Trip
The 2003 Grasslands key site field trip was held during July 18–21 in
conjunction with a field meeting of the Alberta Lepidopterists Guild at
Dunvegan Provincial Park in Alberta’s Peace River Valley. The trip was
organized by Margot Hervieux (Grande Prairie, AB) who has been studying
Lepidoptera diversity in the region, and by Felix Sperling (University of
Alberta). An overview of the locality and the butterfly survey at the site
was published in Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands 9: 17–18. Although the
weather was not particularly cooperative, attendees came from as far away as
Denmark, Maryland and Montreal to collect on the isolated dry grassland
slopes that surround the park. Several attendees at the field trip also took
advantage of collecting opportunities at nearby grassland sites including
the Kleskun Hills near Grande Prairie and Hillview Park near Fairview.
Some participants in the 2003
Grasslands Project Key Site Field Trip at Dunvegan (photo by R. Roughley)
