Excellence awards

Biodiversity Science Discovery awards (BSDA)

This year’s award Recipients

See more details here!

Justine Grimard-Spalding

Sofia Quijada Sanabria

Thomas Giblin

Nora Hand-Lennon

Research funding

Knowledge to Action Research Groups

See the full list of our Knowledge Hubs and Knowledge to Action research groups.

In the year 2025-2026, the QCBS spent a total of $1,272,120 and earned a total of $1,214,895. The graphs below break down these expenses and revenues.

The symposium brought together more than 250 participants, 110 presentations and speed talks, more than 60 posters, 3 panel discussions and more than 15 themes addressed.

A mural illustrated by Mélika Bazin was created live during the first workshop day (pictured below).

Workshop

The workshop, that took place on February 24, is organized in collaboration with Nature Conservancy Canada (NCC). The main theme of the day was “Maximizing Scientific Impact in Restoration and Protection in Quebec.”

The workshop’s main objectives were to :

• Identify ways in which biodiversity science can enhance the impact of conservation and restoration efforts in Quebec.
• Contribute to better alignment between researchers, conservation organizations, and government agencies to help achieve the targets of Axis 1 of the Nature 2030 Plan.
• Promote stronger collaboration between researchers and conservation organizations to better address the needs and knowledge gaps of these organizations.

CSEE 2025 

In July, Sherbrooke hosted the annual conference of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution (CSEE). This major symposium allowed several hundred members to share their research, exchange ideas on their work, and explore the Eastern Townships region through a program of nature outings.

The organizing committee was composed of numerous professors from the Department of Ecology at the University of Sherbrooke, including Fanie Pelletier, Guillaume Blanchet, Marco Festa-Bianchet, Dany Garant, and Mark Vellend as well as many other members of the QCBS, located in Sherbrooke.

MOU – The NBFC and the QCBS

The QCBS established a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in order to promote collaboration between the QCBS and the National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC), and work towards the creation of a network for biodiversity science between Québec and Italy.

Biodiversity Québec’s Annual Working Days

Several QCBS members attended Biodiversité Québec’s annual working sessions on September 18-19, 2025. During these sessions, we shared updates on Biodiversité Québec’s work and participated in a workshop to kick-start and brainstorm ideas for assessing the state of biodiversity in Quebec.

The QCBS is one of three partner organizations involved in the management and direction of Biodiversité Québec, along with the MELCCFP and the Integrative Ecology Laboratory at the University of Sherbrooke.

50e édition du congrès annuel de la SQÉBC

The 50th annual conference of the Société Québécoise pour l’Étude Biologique du Comportement (SQÉBC) took place from October 31 to November 2 at UQAM. It was an opportunity to reflect on 50 years of behavioral studies in Quebec and to look ahead to the future.

Three plenary sessions by founding members on the history of the society and a roundtable discussion with three members of the QCBS – Fanie Pelletier, Laurence Feyten, and Mathilde Tissier – enlivened this edition, which was once again marked by exceptional student involvement, a driving force behind the SQÉBC’s vitality since its beginnings.

The QCBS was a proud sponsor of this event!

Living Data 2025 

Guillaume Larocque and El-Amine Mimouni, two QCBS research professionals participated at in the Living Data 2025 conference held in Bogota, Colombia. Guillaume presented a poster and Amine presented the project “Maximizing the value and reuse of biodiversity research data in Quebec“.

BISTROBRAIN ON BIODIVERSITY

On May 14, 2025, four QCBS members presented their research during an evening organized by BistroBrain. This event provides an opportunity to develop science communication skills in a relaxed setting that blends bar atmosphere with science. The partnership with BistroBrain, which will be renewed, opens doors to new audiences and, for some members, to new science communication skills!

To view the presentations, you can access the recordings here!

Research professional’s workshops

QCBS research professionals continuously offer workshops for both QCBS members and non-members alike!

Intensive courses offered this past year

• Summer School in Path analysis in ecology, offered by Université de Sherbrooke
• Biodiversity Modelling Summer School, offered by Université de Sherbrooke
• Species traits : a functional approach to biodiversity, from organisms to ecosystems, offered by the CFR
• Summer School in Advanced Statistics for the Life Sciences, offered by Université de Sherbrooke

The QCBS represents a partnership between 13 universities and many collaborating organizations. The following represent only a handful of the great projects and organizations that share the QCBS’ goals and values.

IPBES

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is an independent intergovernmental body established by states to strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being and sustainable development. 

In decision IPBES-10/1, the Plenary approved a methodological assessment on monitoring biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people. Following a call for expressions of interest, McGill University made an offer to host the technical support unit for the assessment, which was accepted by the Bureau on 22 November 2023. Thus, the QCBS has forged strong and highly productive collaborations with IPBES throughout the years.

Blitz the Gap

Québec is vast and undersampled, with over 90% of the land area without any occurrence records of any taxa, and citizen science offers the only viable pathway to filling these gaps quickly. The QCBS is well-positioned to help fill this gap, because it is a network of universities and researchers who live, work, and study in many places in Québec. The “Blitz the Gap” project aims to leverage the QCBS’s broad network to fill biodiversity data gaps. The main funding component are Champion Grants, which are offered to QCBS graduate student and postdoc members to plan a bioblitz with a local community, a park, a library or school, or to support sampling events for themselves and their lab group. 

Quebec Biodiversity Data Repository

A QCBS project aimed at curbing the loss and promoting the reuse of biodiversity research data in Quebec. Through the Quebec Biodiversity Data Repository (DQDB), an open repository hosted within the Federated Research Data Repository (FRDR), researchers can deposit their datasets, regardless of type, format, or field of study, to ensure their long-term preservation with a permanent identifier and clear attribution. Beyond archiving, the goal is to make this data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR), so that it can be used in other research projects. These datasets can also be integrated into ongoing initiatives, such as their inclusion in the Quebec Biodiversity Atlas or their sharing with Canadensys for dissemination on GBIF.

Shared infrastructures

Biodiversité Québec Atlas

Database containing over 24 million biodiversity observations and that integrates open sourced data (e.g. GBIF, eBird, eButterfly), government data, and research data.

Learn more

QCBS members have published many papers in the last year, and they were featured in over 20 different journals! The following table lists the journals in which our members have published their work.

QCBS members’ work also appeared in highly prestigious journals over the past year, as detailed by the following figure.

Over the past year, the QCBS has gained 818 new overall followers on social media, which represents a overall 23.6% increase when compared to last year’s numbers.

The social media platform that saw the biggest growth is LinkedIn, as it gained over 849 new followers. As of the start of 2026, we are reaching close to 4,300 people with the QCBS’ social media presence. The exact numbers are broken down in the graph below.

Communication Programs

The QCBS also offers a range of training and work opportunities with partner organizations such as ACFAS and the Thèsez-vous retreats.

In 2025,

These programs are made possible through scholarships from the QCBS.

Over the last year, the QCBS website has been visited by approximately 46,000 users from all over the world, which averages to about 125 users per day. The map below shows from where our users have viewed our website.