What we do

BIOS2

The Computational Biodiversity Science and Services training program

Biodiversity science progressed in the last fifteen years due to remarkable technical advances in computing power and data acquisition, resulting in large biodiversity databases. Increasing societal demands for assessment of the status of biodiversity under global changes is pushing ecology and environmental sciences towards a predictive science. Biodiversity monitoring programs implemented to track the impacts of major industrial projects (e.g. hydro-electricity dams, mines) generate massive amounts of information that can be used to predict future impacts of human actions on biodiversity. Other fields of life sciences, such as genomics and medicine, have met increasing data availability by developing computational infrastructure, data pipelines and analytic frameworks, while ecology is comparatively lagging behind. The Computational Biodiversity Science and Services training program (BIOS2) was developed to address this need. BIOS2 is a community of early career researchers who are exploring and applying modern-day computational and quantitative techniques to address the challenges of biodiversity sciences. Through technical and cross-curricular training, working groups, internships, and collaborative and networking activities, the program aims to broaden the opportunities and skills of students and postdoctoral fellows, and prepare them for high-impact careers in biodiversity science. More info: https://bios2.usherbrooke.ca, info.bio2@usherbrooke.ca

Funding source: NSERC Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) program.

Erin Bayne, Joël Bêty, Anne Bruneau, Andrew Gonzalez, Steven Kembel, Sarah Otto, Pedro Peres-Neto, Timothée Poisot, Andrew MacDonald

The ResNet Network

Providing the cross-sectoral, cross-landscape knowledge and information needed to manage working landscapes.

In working landscapes, the focus has been on the cheap, reliable, and efficient production of individual ecosystem services such as food, energy, or timber, ignoring most effects on other services or other places. We make decisions this way even though have good evidence that there are interactions between resource sectors, across locations, and among ecosystem services. Which means we are making critically important decisions about the future of an isolated, piecemeal fashion with a limited picture of the ecological, economic, and social risks associated with those decisions. ResNet (2019 – 2024) is designed to provide the cross-sectoral, cross-landscape knowledge and information needed to manage working landscapes for the provision of multiple ecosystem services for multiple beneficiaries, now and into the future. To do this, Resnet focuses its work on three key themes in which research is lacking across six landscapes in Canada. In each of the six landscapes, ResNet has launched a series of co- designed investigations into the provision, modeling, and governance of multiple ecosystem services, with academics working alongside industry, government, NGO, and Indigenous partners and other stakeholders. ResNet is an interdisciplinary group (100+ researchers, 11 universities, 17 partner organizations) of researchers with expertise in ecology, economics, natural resource management, social-ecological governance, system resilience, statistics, and modelling. Ultimately, ResNet will develop new tools for estimating ecosystem services outcomes of land use and management decisions for multiple ecosystem services in Canada’s working landscapes. These tools can improve stewardship of Canada’s working landscapes and all the ecosystem services they provide, while fundamentally advancing scientific knowledge about ecosystem services.

Funding source: NSERC

Elena Bennett, Jérôme Dupras, Andrew Gonzalez, Dominique Gravel, Gordon Hickey, Murray Humphries, Etienne Laliberté, Stéphanie Pellerin, Monique Poulin

A Review of Ecological Connectivity Science in Eastern Canada and New England

Assessment of the Science and Projects Describing the Ecologically Connected Landscape Region

The report on ecological connectivity science in the Region of Resolution 40-3 reviews the science of connectivity and the ensemble of plans and projects focused on evaluating and protecting the ecological connectivity of the Northeast Region of North America. These projects are now inventoried on the Ecological Connectivity web portal (https://ecologicalconnectivity.com). Objectives and geographic scope of these projects are compared, while contrasting the scientific methods and measures used to define the networks of habitat and corridors they identify. These methods are compared to current approaches in the connectivity science literature and opportunities are identified for integrating information and conservation goals across plans. To aid interpretation, a brief review of key concepts in connectivity research is provided. Through comparison of the methodologies, scales, and coverage of these projects, the authors of this report identify current gaps in analyses but also the opportunities for harnessing connectivity science for conservation in the Region.

Funding source: Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs

Andrew Gonzalez, Alexandre Arkilanian, Valentin Lucet

A Plan for Southern Quebec

Protecting our natural heritage and adapting to global changes

For decades, southern Quebec has been subject to significant and sustained development pressures, and faces strong trade-offs for the use of the land and resources it contains on an extractive type of economic model that is not changing much. However, Quebec's biodiversity is mainly concentrated in this part of the province, which is more diversified than the areas further north. These pressures affect biodiversity and induce profound changes in the functions and services provided by the ecosystems on which many economic sectors, and more globally, our well-being depend. This situation is all the more worrying since biodiversity is generally recognized as the basis of any adaptation strategy to climate change. In order for Quebec society to cope with environmental changes, whether local or global, it is necessary to develop a different relationship with our natural heritage, especially south of the 49th parallel in Quebec. The growing social demand for environmental protection reflects the importance of these issues for many stakeholders, and there is a broad consensus on the actions that should be taken. Quebec must adopt an ambitious plan to initiate and oversee the changes that are needed in the way we occupy and manage the land and the resources it resources. With this in mind, the Quebec Biodiversity Science Centre (QCBS), the Canada Research Chair in Ecological Economics at the Université du Québec en Outaouais, the Liber Ero Chair in Conservation Biology at McGill University, the Regroupement national des conseils régionaux de l'environnement du Québec and the Réseau de milieux naturels protégés (RMN) have initiated the project of a White Paper for Southern Quebec. The objective of this process is to propose a consensual vision and to bring out major orientations under which concrete measures can be grouped to maintain biodiversity south of the 49th parallel.

Jérôme Dupras, Andrew Gonzalez

Vertebrate biodiversity- a glimmer of hope

Extreme losses in a few populations drive apparent global vertebrate decline

Vertebrate populations - from birds and fish to antelope - are not, in general, declining, despite what has previously been thought and said. A McGill University-led team of biologists found, in an article published recently in Nature, that the picture of dramatically declining vertebrate populations of all kinds is driven by a small number of outlier populations whose numbers are dropping at extreme rates. Once these outliers are separated from the mix, a very different and far more hopeful picture of global biodiversity emerges. It all comes down to math, modeling and different approaches to calculating averages: It has typically been estimated that vertebrate populations have declined on average by more than 50% since 1970, based on historical wildlife monitoring data. “However, given previous mathematical methods used to model vertebrate populations, this estimate could arise from two very different scenarios: widespread systematic declines, or a few extreme declines,” explains Brian Leung a McGill ecologist, the UNESCO Chair in Dialogues for Sustainability, and the senior author on the study. In this paper the researchers approached the question differently. Using a dataset of over 14,000 vertebrate populations from around the globe collated in the Living Planet Database, the researchers identified about 1% of vertebrate populations which have suffered extreme population declines since 1970 (such as reptiles in tropical areas of North, Central and South America, and birds in the Indo-Pacific region). When this extreme 1% was accounted for, the researchers found the remaining vertebrate populations were neither generally increasing nor decreasing, when grouped all together. “The variation in this global aggregate is also important. Some populations really are in trouble and regions such as the Indo-Pacific are showing widespread systematic declines. However, the image of a global ‘biodiversity desert’ is not supported by the evidence.” says Leung. “This is good, as it would be very discouraging if all of our conservation efforts over the last five decades had little effect.” “We were surprised by how strong the effect of these extreme populations was in driving the previous estimate of average global decline,” adds co-author Anna Hargreaves, a professor in the Biology Department at McGill. “Our results identify regions that need urgent action to ameliorate widespread biodiversity declines, but also reason to hope that our actions can make a difference."

Funding source: Mcgill

Anna Hargreaves, Brian Leung

Freshwater connectivity conservation in Quebec's Yamaska watershed

Alex Arkilanian is a masters student in the Gonzalez lab writing his thesis on aquatic connectivity.With the support of the MELCC, MFFP, and MTQ Alex is performing a connectivity assessment for the white sucker (Catostomus commmersoni) in the rivers of the Yamaska watershed. Using a modified network connectivity metric, Alex is using the habitat requirements of this generalist representative species to understand its potential functional connectivity for multiple life stages given existing anthropogenic and natural barriers such as dams, culverts, and waterfalls. The overarching goal of this assessment is to determine important sites for conservation of this species considering both connectivity and quality of important adult and spawning habitats. As a natural extension this assessment will also produce a prioritization of anthropogenic barriers in the region which affect white sucker connectivity the most severely. This assessment will lay groundwork for an expanded connectivity assessment for the larger region of the St. Lawrence Lowlands and for an expanded portfolio of important fish species. Aquatic connectivity has been underappreciated in freshwater conservation and this collaboration with provincial ministries represents an important step into the direction of more directly considering river connectivity in freshwater fish conservation.

Funding source: MELCC, MFFP and MTQ

The Application of Classical Biological Control for the Management of Established Invasive Alien Species Causing Environmental Impacts

This technical report aims to support the understanding and use of classical biological control for the management of invasive alien species that threaten biodiversity and ecosystem services, or already degrade or transform native ecosystems and natural environments. The report provides a detailed review of the history of the success, failure and cost effectiveness of classical biological control programs against the different taxonomic groups of invasive alien species across the agricultural and environmental sectors showing that the likelihood of success is quite target specific, but that the benefits are not always sector specific. There may be Joint benefits for both natural and agricultural ecosystems. The need to address ethical and societal acceptance of the introduction of another ‘beneficial” alien species to control an existing impactful invasive alien species is also explored to show how classical biological control has obtained public acceptance in some contexts and regions, but processes need to put in place to address such issues more broadly around the world. An ethical framework is proposed. Two sections cover existing national and international regulatory mechanisms and agreements supporting the application of biological control both at a national and regional level, while also identifying regulatory gaps. The report also provides a comprehensive review of direct and indirect non-target impacts from historical extant biological control programs and the risk factors (both perceived and real) that contribute to this. After a brief discussion of the future prospects of classical biological control for invasive alien species threatening or harmfully transforming environmental assets, the report concludes with an overview of what countries and jurisdictions, which do not currently or actively undertake classical biological control, need to consider in order to start to adopt such an approach and use classical biological control in the future, should they wish to consider it. This report also contains, in an unbiased manner, the information and inference based on the submissions from Parties and other Governments in response to the Convention on Biological Diversity notification 2015-0525.

Funding source: CBD

Jacques Brodeur

A new study led by researchers from UQAC on Canadian seabed biodiversity

UQAC marine ecology professor Dr. Mathieu Cusson and his colleagues from 13 Canadian institutions have just published the largest study to date on the biodiversity of Canada's seabed. The study, entitled "Seafloor biodiversity of Canada's three oceans: Patterns, hotspots and potential drivers", was published very recently in Diversity and Distributions, a leading journal in the field. The study assessed benthic marine biodiversity in Canada's three oceans; the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Arctic. Dr. Mathieu Cusson orchestrated this study, which began in 2013. His postdoctoral fellow and first author of the study, Dr. Chih-Lin Wei – now a professor of oceanography at the National Taiwan University – says, "A huge effort was required to compile and analyze data from more than 13,000 samples, covering more than 6,000 sites in Canada's three oceans. We are pleased to be able to carry out this project. Finding, formatting, validating and standardizing diversity data has been difficult”. Dr. Wei adds that the most crucial step was to assure the data providers that their data was in good hands. "Using field information compiled over several years by several laboratories, this team used data from nearly 3,400 species and taxa to identify biodiversity hotspots in Canadian marine ecosystems," said Dr. Ricardo Scrosati, co-author from St. Francis Xavier University. The team used a state-of-the-art statistical method in biodiversity assessment. This method, developed by the renowned Taiwanese statistician Dr. Anne Chao, estimates biodiversity from a variety of sampling devices and then uses environmental information to explore the most likely causes of the observed biodiversity patterns. "With nearly 60% more taxa than previous studies, our study shows unprecedented biodiversity hotspots, including in the Canadian Arctic, showing that the dominant view of declining diversity with latitude is not always valid," explains the project leader Dr. Mathieu Cusson. Dr. Scrosati says that overall, the results provide valuable information that should improve, among other objectives, the design of marine protected areas to preserve our rich and fascinating marine benthic biodiversity. "We are pleased to see the study published in this journal, as it has a very high impact factor, suggesting that the study will be widely seen in the scientific community around the world. In this way, we hope to attract talented colleagues and students to further their studies in marine biology and we also hope to see our approaches applied in other parts of the world towards a global synthesis that science is still searching for," said Dr Scrosati. Why study the biodiversity of habitats we don't see? Dr. Mathieu Cusson points out that knowledge of the biodiversity of the seabed helps us understand how ecosystems function. Therefore, if in the near future ecosystems are going to be modified, these studies will urge researchers to consider the consequences on the ecosystem functioning and, ultimately, how these modifications could affect the ecosystem services they provide us with.

What Can the Gut Microbiome tell us about Polar Bear Health?

Polar bears are highly vulnerable due to climate change-induced sea ice decline, as it reduces their access to their primary source of prey, ice-obligate ringed seals. As a response, some bears have altered their foraging behavior by increasing their use of onshore food resources such as subsistence-harvested bowhead whale carcasses, shorebirds, and shorebird eggs. Dietary shifts can have significant health impacts for a species, including altering the host gut microbiome, which is an assemblage of microorganisms (predominantly bacteria) known to carry out many important metabolic and immune system processes for their host organism. To date, the gut microbiome is relatively understudied for many wild populations and species. Our work aims to preliminarily describe and compare the composition and diversity of gut microbial communities of southern Beaufort Sea and East Greenland polar bears, and further build from this knowledge by assessing how differences in the respective diets of these geographically disparate subpopulations might be alternately shaping their gut microbiota. Megan Franz is an MSc student from McGill University working on this project for her thesis. She is supervised by Dr. Melissa McKinney, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University and Canada Research Chair in Ecological Change and Environmental Stressors, and is co-supervised by Dr. Lyle Whyte, a Professor in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University and Canada Research Chair in Polar Microbiology. The project also involves collaboration with colleagues Kristin Laidre from the University of Washington and Todd Atwood from the USGS Alaska Science Center.

Melissa McKinney, Megan Franz

Bon appétit! Contaminants on the menu for North Atlantic killer whales?

Killer whales are among the most contaminated animals on the planet, accumulating high tissue levels of synthetic contaminants. These contaminants, including PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and DDTs (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethanes) have been banned for decades, but are very slow to degrade and show strong accumulation through the food web, leading to elevated exposures in top predators. Such exposures put killer whales, the ocean's top predator, at risk for endocrine, reproductive, and immune-related health effects. It has been shown that diet is an important factor in contaminant variation among killer whale groups. However, the diet within and among groups of killer whales in the North Atlantic is not well understood. Our project aims to use high-resolution chemical tracers of diet measured from biopsy samples of free-ranging North Atlantic killer whales to gain insight into different diets of major groups of North Atlantic killer whales, and in turn, to understand how this feeding variation may lead to differences in exposure to major contaminant classes of environmental concern.

Melissa McKinney, Anaïs REMILI

A citizen science platform for the digitization of specimens from the Louis-Marie Herbarium

The Louis-Marie Herbarium at Laval University is the largest university herbarium in Canada. With close to 800,000 specimens within its walls, the task of computerizing this collection is monumental. To date, about 37% of the specimens, mostly vascular plants, but also bryophytes and lichens, have been digitized. The goal of digitizing the collection of the Louis-Marie Herbarium is to facilitate management and research in the collection, but especially to make the biodiversity data of this collection more accessible to researchers and the general public. Thanks to the collaboration of the Quebec Center for Biodiversity Science, the Herbarium has been able to set up a collaborative portal to computerize the collection. Participants use images of herbarium sheets deposited on the portal to decipher and transcribe essential information such as the name of the species, the place and date of harvesting, or the name of the person who harvested the specimen. This tag information, sometimes handwritten, sometimes typed, but generally complex and very different from each other, is usually best interpreted by individuals, even if digital recognition technologies exist. We hope that this new portal will increase the rate of digitization of the Louis-Marie Herbarium. Biodiversity data from the Louis-Marie Herbarium are disseminated on the Herbarium site (herbier.ulaval.ca) and deposited on several biodiversity data aggregators such as Canadensys, GBIF, the Consortium of North American Lichen and Bryophyte Herbaria and iDigBio.

Claude Lavoie

Possibilities and limits of legal supervision of shore, coastline and floodplain protection in Quebec

Since its adoption in 1987, the Policy for the Protection of Shores, Coastlines and Floodplains (PPRLPI) has been updated several times, the last time in 2017, in order to resolve certain enforcement issues. As part of the modernization of the authorization system under the Environment Quality Act (EQA), the adoption of the Act respecting the conservation of wetlands and water (CWHMA) and the implementation of the new Quebec Water Strategy (QWS), a complete overhaul of the provisions of the PPRLPI must be carried out in the medium term in order to make the necessary amendments. These would concern both the management of floodplains and the protection of shorelines and coastlines, in continental, coastal and possibly wetland environments. A fundamental reflection on the redesign of this Policy must be initiated. The integration of new knowledge and the consideration of climate change also motivate this redesign, as do the findings on the problems of application and uniformity of the minimum normative framework by municipalities. Considering these needs, the Direction de l'agroenvironnement et du milieu hydrique (DAEMH) decided to call on the Centre de la science de la biodiversité du Québec (CSBQ) to conduct a critical study of the regulatory measures of the European Union and some member countries as well as their implementation. Access the report here.

Funding source: Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada, CSBQ, MELCC

Sophie Lavallée

Research Chair on Social Issues in Conservation

- Understand the social opportunities and constraints for protecting the habitats of various threatened or vulnerable wildlife species within a variety of socio-economic and cultural contexts. - Understand landowner perceptions, social responses and potential conflicts related to proposed conseravtion interventions of private wildlife habitat. - Identify barriers to conservation resulting from land use patterns and social, economic and political institutions - Define the collaboration, education and awareness approaches to be prioritized to carry out legal conservation interventions on private land. - Evaluate and compare governance and social organization arrangements for the development and enhancement of natural resources on private land in relation to wildlife conservation issues.

Funding source: Ministry of Education of forests, wildlife and parks, Quebec center for Biodiversity Science

Jean-François Bissonnette, Sophie Calmé, Konstantia Koutouki, Katrine Turgeon, Louis Tanguay

The North American Dialogue on Biocultural Diversity

CICADA Conference

The Dialogue was a 3 day conference, forming part of a series of events organised by the UNESCO-SCBD Joint Programme of Work, which aimed to explore the meaning of values of the links between biological and cultural diversity at the regional level and the subsequent implications for solutions of global problems humanity is currently facing, focussing on indigenous peoples. In particular, the Dialogue aimed to promote exchange and co-creation of knowledge between different actors to contribute to better understanding of the interlinkages between biological and cultural dimensions of diversity and the applications to resource management and decision-making processes. It also aimed to raise awareness and recognition regarding the role of indigenous languages and of local and indigenous knowledge and management systems, which provide the foundations for a rich and flourishing biocultural diversity.

Colin H. Scott

Understanding Microorganisms to Save Harvests

Dr. Etienne Yergeau, professor at the INRS, has received a grant from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation to better understand the interactions between plants and micro-organisms found in the soil. "At their roots, plants exchange services with micro-organisms", explains the professor, " The composition of this community of fungi, bacteria and other microscopic creatures changes depending on external conditions, but we have very little understanding of the dynamics which control this. If we can decipher who does what and how, we could use these interactions to help plants stay healthy in difficult conditions". This research project is also financed by the ministry of Education and Teaching of Quebec.

Funding source: CFI, MEES

Etienne Yergeau

Aural Soilscapes

Creating ecological consciousness to climate change

An Art-Science collaboration aiming to understand how the sounds of our environment influence us as humans and to explore the relationship between humans and the world around us, moving away from an anthropocentric view of ecosystemic interactions to a holistic one.

François-Joseph Lapointe, Ruth Schmidt

Public trees of Montreal

An interactive platform

This interactive visualisation of the public trees of Montreal can be used to easily identify trees on the streets of the city. The tree inventory, which currently contains more than 350,000 trees is performed by municipal employees and the data is made available by the city on their open data portal. Development of this tool was started at an open data hackathon, and was continued by Guillaume Larocque, QCBS research professional.

Economic valuation of ecological services for businesses in Quebec

Preliminary studies to improve our knowledge

In 1992, Canada signed the Convention on Biological Diversity that was then endorsed the same year by the Quebec government. Article 7 of the Convention requires that signing parties identify and monitor components of biodiversity that are important for conservation and sustainable development. However, intensification of land development and climate change is impacting biodiversity in many ways. The Quebec government hopes to be proactive and to forecast effects of natural disasters and human-driven disturbances on biodiversity and to react accordingly by protecting habitats, or by managing populations in a more sustainable way. In light of this, the government has decided to ask the QCBS to improve knowledge on the economic value of ecosystem services for Quebec's business sector.

Funding source: Ministère de l'économie de la science et de l'innovation

Jérôme Dupras, Andrew Gonzalez, Monique Poulin

The Canadian Airborne Biodiversity Observatory

The Canadian Airborne Biodiversity Observatory is a collaboration between five Canadian researchers in biodiversity and remote sensing science. Its main objective will be to study and understand the changes in plant biodiversity at a Canada wide scale using the emerging spectranomics approach. CABO will use high precision spectranomics to measure the spectral signatures of Canadian plants at several spatial scale and coming from different ecosystems, while using standardized protocols. This way, CABO will build a large spectral database of Canadian plants and thus revolutionize the way biodiversity data are acquired in Canada and throughout the world. CABO will reinforce other international initiatives in spectranomics and will position Canada as the world leader in biodiversity science and conservation. The funding for CABO is NSERC’s fourth Discovery Frontiers award, valued at $4 million over 4 years.

Funding source: NSERC Discovery Frontiers award

Anne Bruneau, Etienne Laliberté, Mark Vellend

Québec Ecosystem Observatory

Towards an automated, open and transparent tracking system

Actual ecological knowledge on ecosystems are scarce, particularly for northern ecosystems, and this lack of knowledge limits the anticipation of global change consequences. It is to remedy this alarming problem that the Québec Ecosystem Observatory is being set up. In concrete terms, this observatory will enhance the ecological data already available, building on already existing initiatives such as Canadensys, and harmonize the collecting of those to come. The Observatory intends to set up an open informatics structure composed of an integrated suite of tools for the synthesis and communication of the state of our ecosystems in Québec. This suite will allow, for example, a compilation of real-time data for the automated production of a biodiversity atlas of Québec or the automation of environmental impact assessment pre-projects. The Observatory is also mandated to contribute to the formation and developments of new expertise in biodiversity science. Québec Ecosystem Observatory currently federates actors of various circles (academic, governmental, industrial, non-governmental) and can count on the implication of 4 FRQNT strategic clusters (CSBQ, CEN, Québec-Ocean, GRIL) to achieve its goals.

Funding source: NSERC, QCBS

Dominique Gravel, Timothée Poisot, Steve Vissault