News and Notes

1. Grasslands
Eight chapters have been submitted for the first grasslands volume on ecology and interactions in grasslands habitats, and the review process for these chapters has started. Another chapter is with a co-author for some final editing. Submission of the remaining chapters in the near future will allow the book to be produced in a timely fashion. A good list of potential authors has been assembled for volume 2 on arthropods in altered grasslands and invitations for that volume should be sent soon. The third volume on faunistics is also being developed, pending progress on volume 1.

The grasslands newsletter is becoming difficult to produce for a variety of reasons, including obtaining sufficient content materials as well as the cost and labour of production. Because the first book should be appearing soon, it was agreed that the newsletter in its current form has served its course and effort would be better spent elsewhere. Instead, information will be posted on the website and notifications by email will be sent about significant developments as necessary.

The annual grasslands field trip has been successful for several years. This year the trip will be the Bioblitz at Waterton Lakes National Park, coordinated in conjunction with the forest arthropods project. Planning is well in hand and there have been a number of expressions of interest. The 2006 Bioblitz might be held in western Newfoundland, perhaps in Gros Morne National Park where there are interesting habitats.

2. Arthropods of Canada – a BSC ejournal
The Committee considered a proposal for a BSC ejournal that would make available well illustrated identification guides to parts of the fauna, including keys and not just photographs, treatments of the taxa that are complete at some level, and demonstrably useful for Canadian faunistics. Detailed guidelines are being developed, following some test components, and the Committee discussed issues such as the format, minimal standards, procedure, guidelines for reviewers, editorial structure, action plan and schedule, how to handle updated versions, funding and other issues. The Committee strongly endorsed the proposal. The epublication will be launched in 2006 after being introduced more widely to the entomological community later this year (and see Project Update).

The ongoing project on insect families (a fascicle on apterygotes and exopterygotes is in preparation) will be adapted for use on the BSC ejournal site.

3. Terrestrial arthropods of Newfoundland and Labrador
Some progress had been made in preparing illustrated keys to the terrestrial arthropods of Newfoundland and Labrador and it is hoped that these will be an early contribution to the ejournal. Drafts for several taxa are available. A database of entomological literature dealing with Newfoundland and Labrador records continues to be built. A database of Newfoundland and Labrador taxa and collection localities is being maintained. Other work is also underway. A lot of material from collections in Newfoundland has come to light recently and the residual material will be added to the collections. Additional material as well as wider participation in the project is welcomed.

4. Forest arthropods
The Forest arthropods newsletter has been produced and distributed and now posted on the BSC and CFS web sites. The newsletter has been well received. Planning is underway for the BSC-sponsored symposium on maintaining arthropods in northern forest ecosystems planned for the 2005 ESC-ESA joint annual meeting. The symposium includes synthesis papers (to be published later) that will review findings for Lepidoptera, carabids, staphylinids, aquatic species, saproxylic arthropods, and spiders. The database of forest arthropod biodiversity projects has been updated. The 2005 Bioblitz includes forest elements. A project on the Cerambycidae of Canada and Alaska is underway with funding from the Canadian Forest Service and the U.S. Forest Service. The final product may be in the form of a handbook but this is not yet finalized. A database for the subproject on sucking insects on Jack Pine and Lodgepole Pine continues to be developed.

5. Insects of the arctic
The BSC symposium at the 2004 ESC annual meeting was well received. It remains to be seen whether that interest will translate to northern work. More recently there has been interest and activity centred in Norman Wells, partly because the NWT government is considering declaring the Horton River a special protected area and partly because of interested people there. Some field work is also planned in 2005 in Norman Wells, and perhaps elsewhere. Work in western Alaska in 2004 led to the collection of many species of black flies new for the area. Baseline data on arctic Diptera continue to be accumulated.

6. Seasonal adaptations
A number of papers on this topic are in press or submitted. The Encyclopedia of the Arctic (finally published in 2005) includes short entries on Insects, Insect larvae, and Mosquitoes. Dr. Danks had spent four months recently in Japan, as a visiting professor at the Research Institute for Bioresources of Okayama University, and his work there included the preparation of two review papers on insect cold-hardiness and on insect life cycles.

7. Invasions and reductions
Drawing upon discussions with scientists and pertinent government departments the BSC will co-host (with CFS and perhaps others) a 1-day symposium on non-native arthropods preceding the 2006 entomological societies’ joint annual meeting in Quebec. This symposium will focus on science related to the environmental consequences of invasion. A series of presentations will provide background on the biological invasion of Canada, focus on some key science questions, and set the stage for synthesis products. Some funding is already in place. Details continue to be worked out.

A database of all Canadian non-native arthropods is being developed in cooperation with the Canadian Forest Service’s new national project on established alien species. The CFS plans to develop a web site that is the first-stop-shop for information about exotic tree-inhabiting arthropods and fungi in Canada, but the outlet for the broader database is yet uncertain. These data would fit logically into the Survey’s project on invasions and reductions.

Progress on the specific project on coccinellids in the context of invasive species was reported. Collection data are largely complete for some areas, but not for others. The project continues to determine the structure needed for project databases. Darwin Core 2 is the current widely adopted standard. Development and posting of the coccinellid databases will continue under the guidance of a subcommittee, with the aim of making information available through the BSC web site.

Other scientific priorities

1. Arthropods and fire
Several presentations for the 3.5-hour symposium on arthropods and fire to be held at the 2005 Entomological Societies’ meeting in Canmore are known, and others are being added.

2. Databasing
The Committee briefly discussed general data standards. Some additional work has been done on the BSC’s database of important historic collecting localities, revealing a few interesting problems which have to be resolved (such as wrong locality data). Additional efforts are being made to discover other sources of locality data, to assimilate existing data, and to resolve outstanding issues before loading the database on the BSC web site.

3. Survey web site
Updates continue to be made to the web site in addition to posting of recent Grasslands and BSC newsletters. An index of all newsletter article titles, selected articles from earlier newsletters in pdf format, pdf versions of whole issues from 1999 to present, and pdfs of all copies of Arctic Insect News have been added. Insects of the Arctic reports have been converted to pdf format. The Forest arthropods project page has also been updated (including the Forest Arthropod Biodiversity projects database). The Grasslands project page has also been updated.

In the last 5 months the site has received more than 20,000 unique visitors (equivalent to about 50,000 per year); returning visitors are about 7% of the total. A number of other changes to organization and in particular to the menu structure of the web site are still planned, as the site grows in content and complexity.

4. Endangered species
Developments in Ontario (cf. the Committee on Species at Risk in Ontario (COSARO)) and Canada (cf. COSEWIC) were noted. A recent report on rare and potentially rare Ontario Heteroptera ranked 407 Ontario species, including a few key species. Insects other than butterflies and dragonflies will start to receive more attention once useful identification products are made available (e.g. through the BSC ejournal).

A proposal for a Survey initiative to prepare a multi-authored authoritative book on potentially rare insects in Canada (resurrecting an earlier project dropped because of resistance in the entomological community) will be developed for discussion.

Typical provincial listings for rare and endangered species carry no legal obligations, but if there is overlap with COSEWIC listed species collecting for research may be prohibited if endangered species might be caught. Nevertheless, listing of key species can prove very valuable to protect important habitats.

5. Survey publicity
BSC Symposia at future entomological societies’ meetings will continue to be identified clearly as such, and should include the Biological Survey of Canada as part of the symposium name.

A Survey poster is available to Committee members to download from the Survey web site. The feasibility of making a flag bearing the BSC logo, which could be flown at various field sites across the country as a means of advertising the Survey, will be investigated.

6. BSC award
The first BSC postgraduate scholarship was awarded at the 2004 ESC meeting. The future of the award is secure after donations from the H.V. Danks Trust Fund. A notice was put in the BSC newsletter to solicit more donations. The option of contributing is also on the ESC membership renewal form. Students will be encouraged to apply for future awards.

7. Monitoring of continuing priorities
Some other Survey interests were reviewed, including arthropod fauna of soils (several projects are underway, especially in agricultural systems), arthropods of aquatic habitats, arthropods of the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii) (some additional insect inventories might be funded), arthropod ectoparasites of vertebrates, arthropods of the Yukon (additional pitfall trap material is available, and more will be collected by a cooperating zoologist this summer), arthropods of special habitats (work in salt marshes is going on, and a symposium on mites of special habitats is planned for the 2006 International Congress of Acarology), small regional projects (e.g. work at the Mont St. Hilaire Biosphere Reserve [Buddle, C. 2005 Monitoring biodiversity close to home: collecting generalist arthropod predators from McGill University’s research forests. Arthropods of Canadian Forests No 1: 3-7]), and agroecosystems (including cooperative projects on the impact of wood lots and shelter belts, grazing studies, and work on certain invasive species).

8. Other priorities
The Committee also considered work on the arthropods of the Gulf of St. Lawrence Islands, faunal analysis, potential future publications and other topics.

Liaison and exchange of information

1. Canadian Museum of Nature
Mr. Roger Baird, Director, Collections Division, reported that renovation work at the Victoria Memorial Museum Building is progressing on track. He had participated in the first conference for the Bar Code of Life initiative. He acknowledged that this initiative is not without controversy but is continuing nonetheless. DNA barcoding under the Consortium of the Bar Code of Life (CBOL) is being promoted as an accurate and reliable tool for scientific research on the taxonomy of plant and animal species; a practical, cost-effective tool for assigning unidentified specimens to their correct species; and a system for expanding interest and activity in taxonomy. The group continues to emphasize that DNA barcoding is not intended to invalidate existing taxonomic practice, is not the enemy of taxonomy, does not equate species identity with a particular sequence and is not intended to duplicate or compete with efforts to resolve phylogenies. The Bar Code of Life is being supported by the Alfred Sloan Foundation. The Secretariat for the consortium is hosted at the Smithsonian Institution. The group brings together museums, taxonomists, and R & D labs that are working in DNA sequencing. The conference generated a high profile and promoted both taxonomy and bar coding and brought both into the public press. Initiatives to barcode large numbers of species of birds and fishes and to create a public database of DNA barcode sequences (in collaboration with GenBank) were formally launched at the conference. Other activities and committee work are ongoing. About 42 partners worldwide have signed an agreement of understanding to collaborate in the CBOL. The CMN is one of the partners because it wants to have inside knowledge of what is going on, and the ability to shape and influence things is easier from within an organization.

Mr. Baird reported that a federal science and technology forum was held in January 2005 organized by the Office of the National Science Advisor to the Prime Minister, Dr. Arthur Carty. There were public expressions of personal willingness to work horizontally across Departmental lines, but participants rated their organizations much lower on a scale of readiness/willingness to work in this fashion. Given the territoriality often observed within the senior ranks, some "horizontal projects" seem to succeed by force of will of the individual partners in spite of the systemic bias of these organizational structures. There was greater emphasis at the Forum on technology than on natural sciences. The CMN is involved in a large number of collaborations with Environment, Agriculture and DFO but Mr. Baird acknowledged that the CMN needs to increase its involvement and presence at the federal level to increase the government’s awareness that the Museum is involved in science.

2. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
Dr. Jean-Francois Landry reminded the Committee that three insect taxonomists had been recruited last year and all are developing good active research programs. A useful workshop for technicians and others had been organized on practical molecular techniques, including both theoretical sessions and practical lab work. Staffing for a nematologist and an acarologist specializing in phytophagous mites is in progress. It is expected to be complete within the next 4 months. Candidates will be expected to have molecular expertise as well as some bioinformatics training in addition to being good systematists. A Collections Manager for entomology is being staffed for the first time. This will be an internal reassignment and someone is expected to be in place by July 2005. Dr. Landry spoke about the highly valuable resource of volunteers, including research associates and also highly qualified landed immigrant volunteers who have difficulty finding jobs.

The reorganization of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is largely complete. The systematics research program falls under the Environment team and the Environmental Health program. This program includes approximately 700 scientists across Canada. Within the Environmental Health program are a number of themes one of which is Biodiversity. Under the Biodiversity theme are a number of national studies. Systematic entomology, housed at the Neatby Building, is one of the national studies in the Biodiversity theme. People in the former Research branch now fall under one of three different themes, each with its own Assistant Deputy Minister. Dr. Olfert and Dr. Landry agreed that the new science structure at Agriculture has benefited IPM, which traditionally had a low priority with Centre Directors, as well as biodiversity, which has not always been a "fashionable" term.

Dr. Landry noted that Agriculture has hired a private consultant to study the requirements for consolidating the collections and a detailed report has been presented. It will require the support of other federal departments to be implemented. Discussions are ongoing.

The federal government has an invasive alien species strategy in place. A Memorandum to Cabinet was put forward by several federal departments and organizations. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada participated in the Memorandum but although it is actively involved in providing expertise, collections and facilities associated with invasive alien species, the department received no funding. Most of the funding went to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Canadian Forest Service. However, Agriculture will continue its program on invasive alien species, especially in assisting with identifications.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is the federal government lead on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Dr. Peter Hall was Agriculture’s representative but has moved to London, England. His replacement will be hired very soon. The most visible aspect of GBIF and CBIF has been the development of web portals to mine information on the web about collection specimens. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has committed some funding towards the NSERC grant for the Bar Coding of Life project. Three scientists are participating as collaborators including Dr. Landry for entomology. So far 1650 species of Lepidoptera from northeastern North America have been sequenced, more than 10% of the fauna of North America.

3. Entomological Society of Canada
Dr. Robert Lamb reported that the covers for the Canadian Entomologist and the Bulletin of the Entomological Society of Canada have been redesigned, as created by a professional designer through NRC Press but supplemented by photographs received in a competition. There will be an annual competition for photographs to be used on the covers.

The Society is undergoing a strategic review. The review is being undertaken not because of any serious problems but because it has been 10 years since the last review. The focus will be on membership, finances and particularly electronic information issues. As in other societies, the ESC membership and subscriptions are declining. However income is rising. In 2004 the journal is paying for itself but this has not always been the case; in previous years it has been subsidized from other revenues. Dr. Lamb’s goal is to make the various aspects of the Society (e.g. the journal, the bulletin and scholarships) self sufficient. The electronic publishing aspect of the review is inseparable from the membership and financial aspect of the review. He thinks that the electronic version of the Canadian Entomologist needs to be made more popular. He pointed out that an advantage of publishing electronically is the lower cost of colour illustrations. Dr. Lamb also noted that Dr. Richard Ring has been the editor of the Canadian Entomologist for over a year now. Dr. Lamb asked the Committee whether they thought that the journal is serving faunistic entomology the way it should be. Members of the Committee noted that for many years systematics and faunistics was a mainstay of the Canadian Entomologist, but in recent years that community had been driven away by editorial practices. The systematics community was annoyed by some heavy handed editorial conventions. The faunistics community was frustrated that manuscripts with major contributions to the knowledge of the Canadian fauna were not even being sent out for review because they were deemed to be inappropriate. Some authors in other fields had also been driven away. The community is now cautiously optimistic, hoping that documenting Canada’s fauna will gain acceptance as a valid contribution to the Canadian Entomologist.

Dr. Lamb had received a letter from the International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature. Income from grants and donations has fallen to an unprecedented low and the Trust is appealing to the ESC and other societies for a financial contribution. Dr. Lamb requested the Committee’s advice as to whether he should encourage the ESC to donate some money to this organization. A number of Committee members agreed that the Trust should be supported because it is essential to systematics work. Also the well-funded informatics groups should be lobbied because it is the mandate of these organizations. Government organizations such as those should be supporting the Trust.

4. General Status Program, Canadian Wildlife Service
Ms. Lisa Twolan explained that she coordinates the General Status Program which attempts to establish rankings not just for species at risk but for all species within a given taxon. The first report was released in 2000 – Wild Species 2000, targeting relatively well known taxa including vertebrates, ferns and orchids and butterflies. The working group is now leading up to a second report. By March 2006 it is hoped to have a report that will include rankings for dragonflies and damselflies and possibly general status ranks for tiger beetles. Those groups were chosen primarily because that it was thought that enough information is available. However, the three federal partners in this program, Environment Canada, DFO and Parks Canada do not have the expertise in these groups. Ms. Twolan hopes to be able to take some information back to the working group as to how best to go about taking on rankings for these taxa, and would welcome feedback and assistance.

Ms. Twolan explained that the program was designed to target all wild species in Canada and was initiated because there was a recognition that even though there is a focus on species at risk, there is a need to have a general overview of how all species are doing. The program is now starting to make closer links with the Biodiversity Convention Office and has also been approached by the Alien Species Strategy group to explore how better links with that group might be achieved. As well they have been approached by various biodiversity indicator initiatives to see how the rankings could be used as measures of biodiversity health within Canada.

5. Canadian Forest Service
Dr. David Langor provided an update from the Canadian Forest Service which has also been reorganizing. CFS had been organized along 10 then 5 theme networks, including biodiversity. Now CFS is being organized along business lines. The new ADM had discovered that Forestry was not on the agenda of central agencies in Canada largely because what they do was not perceived to be linked to the requirements of government policy. The reorganization is part of an attempt to improve that situation. Some of the new business lines are relevant to biodiversity such as sustainable forests and climate change. Other lines include strong communities (sociological and economic) and competitiveness (based in Ottawa). Biodiversity is seen as something that cuts across all lines of business but will be prominent especially in the area of criteria and indicators. Dr. Langor did not foresee any drastic changes in the actual work in the near future.

CFS received $1.6 to 1.8 million as part of the Alien Species Strategy. Much of the funding will be used to provide science support to CFIA but some will go towards studying established invasive species.

6. Parasitology module, Canadian Society of Zoologists
Dr. Marcogliese reported that the Stickleback project of the parasitology module continues to recruit new members and gather new data. Environment Canada has signed a 5-year agreement with La Mauricie National Park of Canada to use parasites to monitor ecological integrity in five-spine stickleback. The database in his laboratory will become permanently archived at Environment Canada.

Environment Canada is undergoing organizational changes. The Deputy Minister, Mr. Samy Watson, wants to make science the driving force in the Department. The main themes in research will be conservation, protection of environment, the evaluation of sustainable ecosystems, climate change and meteorological and environmental services. Much of the type of research that Dr. Marcogliese does will fall under evaluation of sustainable ecosystems, especially under the directions of biodiversity, water, air and climate modelling and forecasting. Research at the St. Lawrence Centre is being centralized under one program – Anthropological impacts on diversity and productivity in aquatic ecosystems. On a national level the Deputy Minister is pushing to make environment part of the agenda of every government department. Work on the National Wildlife Disease Strategy continues, including a call for input from professionals and others. The National Agro-environmental Standards Initiative, to develop standards for impacts of agriculture on the environment, has a biodiversity initiative. The final mandate dictates that it will be habitat based, using existing data.

Dr. Marcogliese reviewed some changes in personnel in parasitology, and circulated a variety of reports, journal papers and other documents of potential interest.

Other items

1. Regional developments
Information of potential interest from different regions was outlined, such as diverse work by graduate students and others. In British Columbia, the University of British Columbia received an $8 million gift toward a biodiversity research centre that will include a museum of natural history to look after its collections, expected to open in the fall of 2007. This gift enabled the University to keep money received from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the province. However, the donor is insisting that all the collections must be publicly available, and therefore the plans are to have everything on display for the public. This will create serious problems for insect and other collections. The conservation community has received substantial funds and some will be used to develop a provincial biodiversity strategy. (For example, the current protected areas are not in the right place and may not be any use in the future.) The provincial government, the federal government, Greater Vancouver and Delta contributed funds to purchase Burns Bog, the southernmost raised bog in the world. There is a scientific advisory committee for Burns Bog restoration, and a conservation covenant on the bog states that it is to be restored to a functioning bog. At the University of Victoria only one entomology course is being offered. The Entomological Society of British Columbia is thriving. The Royal British Columbia Museum has opened a new exhibit on climate change that includes computer models of potential biological changes resulting from different temperature changes. Okanagan University College will evolve into two new institutions in September, UBC Okanagan (with academic courses, staff and faculty) and Okanagan College (with technical courses). The former University College of the Cariboo in Kamloops is now called Thompson Rivers University.

In the Prairies, the Entomological Society of Saskatchewan put together an historical perspective of the Society commemorating the centennial of the province. Activities at the Entomological Society of Manitoba continue with enthusiasm for various projects. At the Manitoba Museum a curator responsible for both vertebrates and invertebrates has been hired. The University of Winnipeg has two entomologists now and over the last few years the University of Manitoba has lost two entomologists. The St. Charles Rifle Range in Winnipeg has been turned over to the World Wildlife Fund for stewardship. Plans for the joint Entomological Society of Canada / Entomological Society of Alberta meeting, November 2-5, are on track. The funding environment for biodiversity work in Alberta has improved over the last two years.

In Ontario, all the science departments at the Royal Ontario Museum have been amalgamated into one Department of Natural History. The renovations and addition to the ROM are proceeding. Some galleries are due to open later this year. Two of five new curatorships are in the Department of Natural History, one for an invertebrate zoologist and one for an invertebrate palaeontologist. The University of Toronto is also undergoing reorganization, and the Department of Zoology probably will split into two or three departments. Dr. Rob Baker, another entomologist, has taken over as chair of that department. Despite drastic budget cuts at the University of Guelph, expansion of the insect collection there is continuing. An Ontario Biodiversity Strategy was released this past winter, and a complex web site was set up for reviewers, but the system was frustrating (deleting posted comments) and reviewers soon gave up on it.

In Quebec, the Plant Protection Diagnostic laboratory now has a web site, which has received many hits and apparently has led to an increase of requests for identifications. The departures of staff and an impending retirement means that there will soon be no agricultural entomologists at l’Université Laval. The Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University has a newly approved graduate program in environmental assessment, aimed at giving policy people some science courses. Also a new graduate program in entomology in the neotropical environments program is offered by the McGill School of Environment and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. The Université de Montréal again advertised a position in systematic entomology but was unable to hire anyone. Early planning is under way for the ESC-SEQ joint meeting in Montreal in 2006. Work is in progress towards an eventual second volume of the Lepidoptera of Quebec on microlepidoptera.

In Newfoundland and Labrador and the Maritimes, the joint 2004 ESC/AES meeting last fall was a success; 235 people were registered. The 2005 Acadian Entomological Society meeting will be held June 19-21 in Fredericton. The online journal of the AES is officially running and accepting papers although nothing has yet been published/posted. The journal will focus on regional papers.

For the Arctic, a visit to the westernmost tip of Alaska revealed that western Alaska is far more rich in black flies than previously supposed. There are plans to visit Chukotka in 2005, although logistics for the trip are proving difficult. The NSERC northern supplement has been reinstated and can be applied for along with a discovery grant.

2. Other matters
The Scientific Committee also discussed other matters arising from the previous meeting, the Annual Report to the Canadian Museum of Nature, planning for the next meeting of the Committee, and other issues. The Annual Meeting of the Biological Survey Foundation was also held.

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Newsletter of the Biological Survey of Canada (Terrestrial Arthropods)

Volume 24 No. 2, Fall 2005