Newsletter of the Biological Survey of Canada (Terrestrial Arthropods)

New Project: 
Arthropods of Canadian Forests

Forest Arthropod Project Inventory in Canada

Rationale: The Biological Survey of Canada (Terrestrial Arthropods) is undertaking a survey of active forest arthropod biodiversity projects in Canada to update a database that is now 10 years old. The intention is to build a comprehensive searchable on-line database that will be regularly updated. Improving awareness of ongoing forest biodiversity research/survey projects in Canada is expected to lead to: increased opportunities for data sharing and syntheses; exchange of experiences, expertise and information; broader collaboration; and better visibility for our activities. We ask you to please take a few minutes to complete the following survey and return it (preferably in an electronic form, e.g., Word document).

1. Province/Location/Name: Province(s) may be sufficient for projects of broad geographic scope. A more specific location should be given for projects of smaller scope, e.g. Southern Ontario, Fundy National Park, City of Edmonton. In some cases an experiment may have a name.

2. Contact: Name(s) of main contact (try to limit to 1 or 2), affiliation, email address, phone number.

3. Forest type (tree species): e.g., boreal spruce, Carolinian, Garry oak, spruce mires

4. Trapping methods: e.g., pitfall traps, light traps, flight intercept, sweeping, soil cores, pans.

5. Sampling duration: include years in which sampling took place, and the time of year in which sampling occurred, e.g., 1992-98 – snow-free season; 1996 – July; 1998-2002 – early May, mid-July, late Sept.

6. Focal taxa: Class, Order, Family, Genus, trophic group, ecological assemblage, e.g., spiders, Lepidoptera, Carabidae, defoliators, saproxylic beetles. Also note if other taxa (plants, vertebrates, worms) were sampled in the same experiment.

7. Design: very brief overview of experimental design, number of replicates, number of sites/samples, e.g. 1: 2 harvest treatments and control, 4 replicates, 60 traps, 600 samples; e.g. 2: 14 trees, 300 branch samples, 2500 specimens.

8. Goal/Objectives: very succinct (<50 words) description of the goal/objectives of the project.

9. Opportunities: succinct description of opportunities for collaboration, data exchange, specimens, etc., e.g., graduate student opportunity, looking for other carabids datasets for meta-analyses, spiders unidentified and available to interested parties.

10. Products: an indication of whether some products are available and the type, e.g., journal papers, URL, species list, photographs, databases. If publications are available, please provide one or two examples for inclusion in the database. PDFs especially welcome as these could be attached to the database.

11. Vouchers: Location of voucher specimens.

 

Example:

1. Province/Location/Name: Alberta, Northwest, Zama Experiment

2. Contact: David Langor, Canadian Forest Service – Edmonton, dlangor@nrcan.gc.ca, phone (780) 435-7330

3. Forest type (tree species): Boreal Highlands – white spruce dominated

4. Trapping methods: pitfall traps, flight intercept (FI) traps on snags, UV light traps, Lindgren funnel traps

5. Sampling duration: 1997 (pre-treatment), 1998, 1999, 2002 – April to Sept.; continuous sampling except for UV traps which were run 1 night each week.

6. Focal taxa: Lepidoptera; epigaeic Carabidae, Staphylinidae and spiders; saproxylic beetles.

7. Design: 7 harvesting treatments and controls; 4 replicates; 32 UV traps, 96 pitfall traps, 96 FI traps; 4 Lindgren traps; many thousands of samples.

8. Goals/objectives: To assess responses of arthropods to alternate harvesting practices.

9. Opportunities: Staphylinidae, spiders and saproxylic beetles yet unidentified and may be available to interested parties.

10. Products: species list of Carabidae; journal papers Volney, W.J.A et al. 1999. A silvicultural experiment to mitigate pest damage. Forestry Chronicle 75:461-465.

11. Vouchers: Northern Forestry Centre, Edmonton