The ABMI’s Public Speakers’ Series Livestream

Event Program

9:00-9:45 - The ABMI & the Alberta Context

• Kirk will address the design of the ABMI and the outputs generated, and discuss the role that the AMBI plays in informing resource management. Contact: andries<at>ursuspag.com

  Kirk is a partner in the URSUS Public Affairs Group and the Executive Director of the ABMI. He has been involved with the institute since 1999 and has led its operations for over 12 years. During that time the ABMI has grown to be one of the leading monitoring programs in North America. Kirk has more than 25 years of experience in the public and private sector. He is an experienced natural resources manager and actively works on policy for land use planning, forest industry sustainability, Intregrated Land Management, and climate change.
  
  LINKS

  • Introduction to the ABMI
  • The Status of Biodiversity in the Athabasca Oil Sands Area

• The Alberta Environmental Monitoring Evaluation and Reporting Agency (AEMERA) is an arm’s length provincial agency responsible for measuring, assessing and informing the public on the condition of Alberta’s environment. AEMERA was established on April 28th, 2014 with the proclamation of the Protecting Alberta’s Environment Act, which establishes and sets out its scope and mandate. AEMERA is working toward becoming a fully operational arm’s length agency by April 1, 2015. President and CEO Jay Nagendran will provide an update on the status of AEMERA including operational planning and its proposed approach to interacting and working with environmental monitoring organizations. Contact: jay.nagendran<at>aemera.org

  Prior to joining AEMERA, Jay served as a Board Member with the Natural Resources Conservation Board for three years and on the Surface Rights and the Land Compensation Boards for one year. Jay served as Assistant Deputy Minister for six years at Alberta Environment and Alberta Tourism, Parks and Recreation. During his long career in the province, he also worked as manager of environment and engineering at the Alberta Special Waste Management Corporation, served as a Canadian advisor on environmental standards to the Indonesian government as part of a Canadian International Development Agency project, and was a member of several World Bank teams on environmental issues.

  Jay was a member of the University of Alberta Senate for six years and the served on the Board of Governors for three years. He is currently a board trustee and chair of the Admissions Committee for the Institute of Professional Environmental Practice.

  Jay has a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of California and a masters’ degree in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Alberta. He is also a Board Certified Environmental Engineer with the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and a Qualified Environmental Professional with the Institute of Professional Environmental Practice. He has won many awards including two international awards for his work in the environmental field.

  Jay is very proud of his wife, Shyamala, their two sons and their families.

• Environmental management frameworks are a key approach to managing the long-term cumulative effects of development on the environment in regional planning under the Land-Use Framework. As part of the ongoing implementation of the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan (LARP), Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD) has completed a draft Biodiversity Management Framework (BMF) for the region. The Framework supports the achievement of regional biodiversity outcomes through the establishment of thresholds for indicators of biodiversity – reflected as key species and habitats.  Successful implementation requires ongoing monitoring, evaluation and reporting support from AEMERA, including the ABMI. Once implemented, this Framework will support the Alberta Energy Regulator and ESRD in operational decision making to ensure achievement of biodiversity objectives for the region. Contact: dallas.johnson<at>gov.ab.ca

  Dallas Johnson is the Director of Assessment and Evaluation in the Land-use Framework Regional Planning Branch of Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development. He has been employed by the department since 2007 and has worked in a number of roles over that time, including leading the department's Environmental Impact Assessment program. Dallas has a PhD from the University of Guelph and lives in Edmonton with his wife and two daughters.
  
  LINKS

  • Lower Athabasca Regional Plan Strategies 
  • The Future of Biodiversity in Alberta: Regional Planning and the ABMI

Group Q+A

9:45- 10:30 - Old Challenges, New Ideas

• The ABMI and the Royal Alberta Museum are working together to develop the infrastructure and expertise necessary to better understand Alberta’s biodiversity.  Large-scale biological monitoring programs, like the ABMI, require considerable taxonomic support from a community of scientific specialists widely acknowledged to be over worked and under resourced (i.e., the taxonomic impediment).  While most natural history museums house specimen collections and employ taxonomists, these institutions face a daunting backlog of unidentified specimens, dwindling collection storage space and the diversion of taxonomic expertise to other demands.  As a result, natural history museums are often hesitant to enter into long-term arrangements with biodiversity monitoring programs.  However, such arrangements may also represent a boon for the future of taxonomy by creating jobs for taxonomists, training cadres of new specialists and building extremely valuable specimen reference collections.  Contact: tyler.cobb<at>gov.ab.ca

  Dr. Tyler Cobb is the Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the Royal Alberta Museum and has served as Director of the ABMI Processing Centre since 2008.  As the “bug” curator, Dr. Cobb is responsible for the museum’s collection of insects, spiders and other invertebrates, as well as for the live “Bug Room Gallery”.  In addition to his museum duties and research, Dr. Cobb manages a highly specialized team of museum scientists and technicians charged with supporting the many taxonomic, laboratory, and specimen curatorial needs of the ABMI.  
  
  LINKS

  • ABMI at the Royal Alberta Museum: Understanding Alberta’s Lichens 
  • A Dragon in Alberta?! 
  • Alberta’s Wonderful World of Bryophytes 
  • Treasure is Everywhere for Taxonomists
  • Bryologist at Large: Profile of Richard Caners
  • Dung Mosses: Masters of Manipulation
  • The World Beneath Our Feet: The Mysterious World of Lichens Part 1 and Part 2

• Spot. Snap. Post! These three words lie at the heart of the ABMI’s new citizen science mobile application, “NatureLynx”, but don’t sufficiently convey the power of this new tool. Adding the words Share. Learn. Ask. Answer begins to speak to what “NatureLynx” is being designed to facilitate. The goals, functions (via live demonstration), and the budding biodiversity network growing around “NatureLynx” will be presented. Contact: tnarwani<at>ualberta.ca

  Tara Narwani is both a scientist and a science communicator. While doing her graduate work in plant genetics at the University of Alberta, Tara interned as a science and medical reporter for CBC Radio in Edmonton. Working at the nexus of science and communications, Tara saw how important it is to effectively mobilize the results of scientific research to its users—be it government, industry, or the public—to ensure the benefits of research are fully realized. As the ABMI’s Communications Lead, Tara spends her days (as part of a great team!) working to demonstrate the value and utility of the ABMI’s work to Alberta’s natural resource and land-use decision makers.  

• Increasing demand for reliable knowledge of wildlife status, trends, and response to human activities has catalyzed innovation and new technology. Automated recording units (ARUs) are transforming the way people monitor birds, amphibians, and other animals that make sound. Advances in portability, durability, and battery life mean the units can be deployed almost anywhere, and programmed to record 24/7. Field workers with practical know-how but no specialized ecological training can collect acoustic data, enabling non-scientists to participate in the important work of wildlife monitoring and research. Computer-assisted detection and identification of wildlife sounds has a long way to go, and new statistical approaches are needed to extract knowledge from the sound files. The challenges and opportunities of acoustic monitoring are the focus of collaboration between the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, the University of Alberta, and anyone that cares to listen. Contact: dfarr<at>biotacanada.ca

  Dan Farr is the director of the ABMI’s Applications Centre, providing project leadership and connecting networks to integrate science related to ecosystem services. Throughout his 25-year career in the non-profit and consulting sectors, Dan has contributed applied scientific knowledge to environmental management systems, especially in the areas of land use, biodiversity, and environmental monitoring.

  LINKS

  • On the Trail of the Yellow Rail
  • Wiretapping the Woods
  • Standardized Wildlife Monitoring: a major step forward in harmonization of data collection methods!

Group Q+A

10:30-11 AM: Coffee Break

11:00-11:45 - ABMI's Application Centre

• Natural systems provide people with a wide variety of benefits that contribute to our well-being and health. These “ecosystem services” exist at the nexus of Alberta’s economic, social, and environmental goals; they directly support many of our industries, including forestry, crop production, and cattle ranching; provide recreational outdoor activities; and make our communities more liveable places. Despite this importance, many ecosystem services are not well understood, and as a result they are often ignored in land-use planning and decision-making. The principal goal of ABMI’s Ecosystem Services Assessment project is to develop a set of spatially explicit models to map the supply and value of a handful of these services across Alberta: forest timber production, water purification, crop pollination, rangeland forage production, carbon storage, and biodiversity. Understanding the distribution of these services across the province will provide a more complete account of the values provided by our landscapes, and allow us to make better decisions about how we manage our land now and in the future. Contact: thabib<at>ualberta.ca

  Tom Habib leads the development of ABMI’s integrated ecosystem service models. His other recent research projects include evaluating alternative strategies for biodiversity offsets in Alberta, and assessing priority areas for land and bird conservation in western Canada. He has a background in wildlife ecology, and his research typically has a strong focus on GIS and spatial analysis. Tom also is experienced with spatial conservation optimization for balancing environmental and economic objectives using MARXAN software.

  LINKS

  • www.ecosystemservices.abmi.ca
  • The Latest Buzz on Alberta’s Wild Bees
  • 5 things you should know about ecosystem services, found on our new website!
  • Valuing Nature’s Services in Alberta
  • Economic and Ecological Outcomes of Flexible Biodiversity Offset Systems
  • Assessing the Provisioning of Water Purification in Alberta

• Land is disturbed whenever oil and gas wellsites are built and maintained. Vegetation and soil are removed and the soil compacted, changing the way water is absorbed and moves across the landscape. Once a wellsite is decommissioned, the government issues a reclamation certificating following the fulfillment of a variety of criteria. However, the reclamation process complex, and it is not currently known how long it actually takes for a wellsite to return to a productive state. The ABMI’s Ecological Recovery Monitoring (ERM) project is developing a long-term monitoring program to assess the ecological recovery of certified, reclaimed wellsites across Alberta to determine the time it takes for wellsites in different kinds of ecosystems to return to a productive state. Over the past two years, the ERM project has gathered results on wellsites in native grasslands and forested lands. To complete the development of a province-wide monitoring program, information on the state of wellsites on cultivated lands will be collected in the spring and summer of 2015. Contact: delinda<at>ualberta.ca

  Delinda Ryerson brings 20 years of experience related to the management of natural resources, people and projects to the ERM project. As a Fisheries and Wildlife Biologist for the Government of Alberta, she was responsible for population and habitat assessments, harvest allocations, species at risk and environmental impact assessments, including the oil spill at Lake Wabamun. She has also worked for Parks Canada as the Manager responsible for the conservation of natural and cultural resources at Elk Island National Park and as a private consultant evaluating fish passage on hydroelectric projects and assisting in the development of provincial level land-use plans.

  LINKS

  • Ecological Recovery Monitoring
  • We Have a Reclamation Certificate, But Is It Good Enough?
  • Monitoring Ecological Recovery of Reclaimed Wellsites in Alberta
  • Selecting indicators for monitoring reclamation success from a soils perspective  

   

• Climate change projections for the 21st century suggest that species will either need to adapt to environmental change, or migrate to keep pace with their environmental niches. Although the magnitude of climate change will be similar across Alberta, the rates at which species must move to maintain their current climatic environment depends on regional landscape topography. This results in species needing to migrate to new sites with similar original climates at different speeds, as well as the emergence of places that may potentially act as refugia in the future. Dr. Nielsen will explore his work with the ABMI to assess climate change vulnerabilities of Alberta’s biota, and management options that can be used to mitigate its effects, such as prioritizing places and species for future conservation actions, and the experimental use of assisted migration for rare species. Contact: scottn<at>ualberta.ca

  Scott Nielsen is an Associate Professor of conservation biology and Alberta Biodiversity Conservation Chair in the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta.  Scott holds a BSc and MSc in Biology and Natural Resource Management from the University of Wisconsin and a PhD in Ecology from the University of Alberta.  His research focuses on the ecology and conservation of threatened species and biodiversity with the goals of understanding the processes affecting their distribution and dynamics in order to facilitate conservation and restoration actions and more broadly the sustainable management of our environment.

  LINKS

  • www.biodiversityandclimate.abmi.ca
  • Blazing Ahead of Climate Change
  • Regional Sampling and Monitoring of Rare Plants in the Lower Athabasca
  • ABMI on the Small Screen

Group Q + A

11:45-12:30 PM: Lunch

12:30-1:15 - ABMI's Science Centre

• The ABMI samples terrestrial biota (lichens, mosses, vascular plants, mites, birds, mammals), aquatic biota (vascular plants, benthic invertebrates), and terrestrial and aquatic habitats (live and dead trees, shrubs, herbs, litter, soil, water physiochemistry, water basin characteristics) throughout Alberta. In addition, the ABMI maps human footprint and vegetation throughout Alberta using satellite imagery and aerial photography. The resulting information has been analyzed to describe species habitat associations and changes in human footprint during the past decade. We highlight how ecological intactness – a measure of ecosystem deviation from undisturbed condition – can be modeled with ABMI information. Intactness information can be also be used to describe distribution, abundance and cumulative effects for all of the species that are modeled. The information can also be integrated among species to describe biodiversity hotspots. Contact: jim.schieck<at>albertainnovates.ca

  Jim Schieck has been a Research Scientist at Alberta Innovates Technology Futures for the past 20 years. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta, Science Director for the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, has published more than 30 papers, helped to organize more than 20 workshops, and produced more than 100 client reports. Jim’s expertise includes avian ecology, population dynamics, community ecology, forest ecology, and conservation biology.

  LINKS

  • species.abmi.ca
  • Forecasting the future of Alberta’s birds

• Understanding the amount, pattern and rate of change of human disturbance in a region is the first step to understanding cumulative effects of human development on biodiversity. Conversion of native vegetation to human footprint has been shown to affect the species present at a site and in the surrounding landscape. By understanding how habitats are changing in a region, planners, managers and the general public can start to understand how biodiversity is also changing. Contact: solymos<at>ualberta.ca

  Dr. Peter Solymos is an ecologist who develops methods for big data and complex models to better inform large-scale conservation and management.

  LINKS

  • Applying Remote Sensing-Based Land Cover to Biodiversity Assessments 

• ABMI models the relationship between species and habitat, which is human footprint and natural vegetation. This work ties together the two main parts of ABMI’s monitoring: field surveys of species and remote sensing of the landscape.  The species-habitat models are the core of many ABMI analysis products, including: biodiversity intactness, species mapping, reporting on the effects of industrial sectors, and identifying biodiversity hotspots.  As ABMI works to implement provincial trend monitoring, species-habitat models will be essential to reporting on species’ trends. Contact: dhuggard<at>telus.net

  Dave Huggard is an ecologist who has worked on research and monitoring projects in western Canada on species ranging from wolves to beetles, along with forest habitat, silvicultural systems, hydrology and landscape planning.  He currently works as a statistical ecologist for ABMI, governments and companies, trying to make sense of large ecological datasets and models.
  
  LINKS

  • The Status of Biodiversity in the Oil Sands Region of Alberta
  • The Status of Biodiversity in the Athabasca Oil Sands Area

Group Q+A

1:15-2:00 PM - ABMI's Geospatial Centre

• This group session will explore the geospatial approaches that the ABMI uses to assess the relationship between land use and the status of biodiversity in Alberta. These include analyses of satellite datasets to report on human footprint and to generate wall-to-wall mapping products, as well as photo plot assessments to create fine-resolution representations of vegetation cover (Jahan Kariyeva). The 2012 ABMI Human Footprint Inventory, the only province-wide inventory, is about to be released, and we will discuss the value of this mapping work to land use planners (Branko Hricko). In collaboration with ESRD, the ABMI is also producing a high quality GIS inventory layer of oil and gas infrastructure in the Joint Oil Sands Monitoring region by updating the Alberta Base Feature layers that capture pipelines, access roads, transmission lines, well-sites, and seismic lines in the region (Cris Gray). To deliver information on changes in habitat and vegetation in Alberta landscapes, the ABMI implements the sample-based land cover analysis for 1656 sites across the province (Bryce Maynes). Finally, the ABMI is conducting a series of research projects including the assessment of vegetation recovery in disturbed areas and wetland delineation using LiDAR data (Jerome Cranston).

  LINKS
   

  • Welcome to the ABMI’s New Geospatial Centre
  • From a Bird’s Eye View: Expanding ABMI perspectives with remote sending and geospatial technologies
  • Land Cover Mapping of the Changing Alberta Landbase
  • Multi-Temporal Remote Sensing: A new perspective on the dynamic Albertan landscape
  • Lidar as a Tool for up-to-date Timber Volume Estimation in the ALPAC FMA 
  • ABMI Presents State of the Art Remote Sensing Visualization Product at MultiTemp 2013
  • Remote Sensing Group Completes New Wall-to-Wall Land Cover Map 

• Jahan Kariyeva manages the ABMI’s Geospatial Centre. Jahan is an environmental geographer; the focus of her recent research has been human-environment interactions and how ecosystems respond to the cumulative impacts of land-use and climate change. Jahan holds a Ph.D. in Geography and Spatial Analysis from the University of Arizona, an M.Sc. from the University of Ohio, and a B.Sc. from the Turkmen State University, Turkmenistan. Jahan brings her knowledge and experience of the interaction of human activity and ecosystem processes to the ABMI’s Geospatial Centre. Contact: kariyeva<at>ualberta.ca

• Branko Hricko has PhD. in Economic Treatment of Forest – Forestry Mapping from Technical University of Zvolen, Slovak Republic. He is also a Certified Photogrammetrist by American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS). He started his career in academia as an Assistant Professor and a Researcher. He spent over 11 years working for privately owned consulting companies in the geospatial field and presently works as GIS Coordinator of the Human Footprint Mapping Group at the ABMI. Contact: hricko<at>ualberta.ca

• Cris Gray has a BSc in Biology and Environmental Studies from the University of Victoria and an Advanced Diploma in GIS. She worked as a field biologist in northern Alberta for several years, specializing in bird surveys and winter mammal tracking. She presently coordinates the ABMI’s support for Base Feature updates as well as creating mapping products and analysis for reports. Contact: cg<at>ualberta.ca

• Bryce Maynes is a Registered Professional Forester with 15 years experience in the forestry sector. He has inventoried millions of hectares of forested and non-forested landscapes in several provinces and territories. He currently coordinates the ABMI’s sample-based air photo interpretation program. Contact: bmaynes<at>ualberta.ca

• Jerome Cranston provides geographic information system support to the Ecosystem Services Assessment project and other research initiatives. For the past 12 years he provided GIS support and application development to the Foothills Research Institute Grizzly Bear Program, drawing on an extensive forestry background to develop planning tools for industry partner. Contact: cranston<at>ualberta.ca

2:00 PM – Closing & Goodbye