Donna Giberson (Elbows UP!) 🇨🇦🇺🇦

Northern Lights
Roy Henry Vickers ~ Haida, Heiltsuk, Tsimshian
2014

If the economy is so dependent on oil that it requires a war in the Middle East or some other devastating exogenous event to buoy oil prices and come closer to balancing budgets, maybe we're not making the best decisions.

Any Canadian tweeps recall what the GoC version of the OPERA Insar portal is? I can't locate it. @natural-resources.canada.ca

This happened at least twice in my memory when I was a member of the university's Academic Appeals committee. Can't remember which academic units were involved.

Also if your primary concern about the permanent time change is kids walking to school in the dark I present to you years of research showing school should start later in the day

www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/cha...

ewa.org/data-researc...

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I've looked at a lot of little red squiggling Chironomidae over the decades 🙂

those were different kinds of midges (Chironomidae) than what Art is referring to (Ceratopogonidae), but the principle (loss of taxonomists) is the same...

Come join #LaurierBiology!
We're recruiting 3 tenure-track faculty positions!

Integrative Organismal Zoologist!
careers.wlu.ca/job/Waterloo...

Microbial Systems Biologist!
careers.wlu.ca/job/Waterloo...

Computational Ecology/Modeling Biologist!
careers.wlu.ca/job/Waterloo...

DEADLINE MARCH 22nd!

B.C. to end time changes, adopt year-round daylight time | CBC News March 8 will be the last time British Columbians have to change their clocks, B.C. Premier David Eby announced Monday.

well, that was a bit of surprise (personally I was in favour of staying on standard time, but I guess I'm an outlier)
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Creative inclusion or regressive exclusion? AI and the arms race in teaching and learning - CAUT As the workshop facilitator demonstrated the latest update in AI technology, we realized that we had lost the arms race of teaching and learning.

We had some thoughts about Generative AI, and @caut.bsky.social was kind enough to help us express them.
#HigherEd

Creative inclusion or regressive exclusion? AI and the arms race in teaching and learning - www.caut.ca/bulletin/cre...

@alexsmithants.bsky.social @danielgillis.ca

Linear anthropogenic disturbances increase butterfly abundance, species richness, and cross-corridor movements
doi.org/10.4039/tce....
#NewInCanEnt

Margaret Sibella Brown stands beside a small wooden table, arranging flowers in a ceramic jug. She wears a long dark dress with fitted sleeves and a wide, ruffled white collar. Her hair is pinned up, and she looks down toward the bouquet of daisies and leaves in the jug. An open book rests on the table beside the vase. The photograph is sepia-toned with a plain backdrop.

Nova Scotia's Margaret Sibella Brown was fascinated with moss and liverworts.
As an amateur bryologist, she published several papers and oversaw efforts to collect sphagnum moss for use as surgical dressing during the First World War.
This is her story.

🧵 1/8

A photograph of a velvet worm: a segmented, soft-bodied animal, with beautiful patterning which looks like it has been rolled in orange and blue sequins.

A photograph of a giant springtail: an invertebrate with a soft blue body covered in long yellow soft spines.

Some exciting life news... I am now a lecturer in Entomology and Ecology at Lincoln University in NZ!

We took the Entomology students on a fieldtrip over the weekend, and saw some of my favourite invertebrates: Velvet worms and giant springtails! Always a treat to see these!

#SoilBiodiversity 🧪

‘I love midges because I know what their hearts look like’: is the passion for taxonomy in danger of dying out? Insect taxonomist Art Borkent has described and named more than 300 species of midges but fears his field of science is dying out, despite millions of insects, fungi and other organisms waiting to be ...

Incredible article about Art Borkent, biting midges, and aging taxonomists.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

A partially-finished drawing of a raccoon looking at the camera on grey toned paper. The left side of the face is partially complete and four coloured pencils lie on the paper in the bottom right corner.

Looking for a fun spring project? Join me for a 4-session online course drawing a raccoon in coloured pencil starting April 1. I will walk you through all the steps from drawing the initial image to bringing it to life in colour. You can register at: www.mcnallyrobinson.com/classes #SciArt

I complain about CBC, because it’s not perfect, and fair criticism is allowed and appropriate. But seriously, thank God for CBC in Canada. It needs to be protected.

Source of image: https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/social-science-pandemic-cultural-evolution/

A tenure-track faculty position (Professor of Evolutionary Biology) is open at #UQAR in Quebec, Canada. Teaching in French. Application deadline: 4 May 2026. Details: www.csz-scz.ca/job-postings... 🧪

There was even a vial with an elaterid in amongst my mayfly vials. Don't think you'd be too interested, though, as it was a wireworm from the Ag station.

Green Party news release about the pending closure of the Diptera unit at the Canadian National Collection of Insects
www.greenparty.ca/en/news/gree...

An historic black and white illustration of a paper nautilus floating on the ocean. There are boats, a city and hills in the background.

🎉 Huge news for BHL: The Field Museum is taking over the hosting of BHL’s website, servers & infrastructure, ensuring long-term stability and access for its 63+ million pages of open biodiversity literature. Learn more:
blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2026/02/tran...
#BHLTransition #ILoveBHL 🌍 📚 🧪

Very old ethanol. Some dark brown from a combo of bleeding from old stoppers & from the exoskeletons on the insects. All were examined in 80% ethanol & placed in clean vials with fresh 80% ethanol. The real work tho was deciphering the labels to make them readable! Most specimens were in good shape!

a map of eastern Canada, with black dots showing sites in Newfoundland and Labrador where mayflies were collected during the 1970s and 1980s.

photos shows a desk with microscopes set up for identifying mayflies, and a shelf unit filled with vial racks. Each rack contains several vials of mayflies, collected in the 1970s and 80s by workers at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

A vial rack containing vials of mayflies collected in the 1970s and 80s by workers at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Vials contain from one to several dozen specimens, and these were opened, labels updated with georeferenced locality information, and identifications updated as much as possible with current taxonomic information.

A selection of vials of mayflies collected in the 1970s and 80s by workers at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Vials contain from one to several dozen specimens, and these vials were opened, labels updated with georeferenced locality information, and identifications were updated as much as possible with current taxonomic information. These specimens will be returned to the Newfoundland Museum, The Rooms, for long term storage.

Big milestone day for me: finished curating ~1400 archived vials from several 1970s/80s collecting expeditions in Newfoundland & Labrador. Result: >15,000 specimens & 66 species of mayfly. Breakdown: 63 from Labrador, 25 from Isl. of Newfoundland; 25 in common. 37 genera represented, in 12 families.

The pictured ones were from archived samples from Newfoundland & Labrador so I didn't collect them. I have collected them from fast moving streams in New Brunswick though - just a normal Hess sampler with 200um mesh for larvae, and emergence traps for adults.

They were common in a small stream I worked on in New Brunswick (Canada) many years back, but I hadn't encountered any since then, so this was a real treat!

📚 Four special issues will be published as a major scientific output of our conference.

The participating journals are Pedobiologia, Soil Biology and Biochemistry, Applied Soil Ecology and Journal of Sustainable Agriculture & Environment.

globalsoilbiodiversity2026.org/journals-spe...

Accommodations - Global Soil Biodiversity Conference 2026 Accommodations Stay with Us: Conference Hotels for #GSB2026 The #GSB2026 Local Organizing Committee is excited to partner with four outstanding hotels, all within walking distance of the Victoria Conf...

🛏 Have you booked your accommodations yet?

Two of our hotels are fully booked, but you can still get a room at a discounted rate in other two hotels (Marriot and Parkside). Don't miss out! #GSB2026

globalsoilbiodiversity2026.org/accommodatio...

a pair of mating Nymphomyia walkeri adults. These tiny little flies would have feathery wings when they first emerge, but lose their wings when they re-enter the water to mate.

A larva of Nymphomyia walkeri from Newfoundland. This is a tiny little white worm-like larva with a shiny head and little prolegs all along the abdomen.

Dorsal view of a Blepharicera tenuipes larva from Labrador, Canada. The larvae is a pale tan in colour, with a darker mark on its head. Each segment is expanded out on each side, with a proleg on each side.

Ventral view of a Blepharicera tenuipes larva from Labrador, Canada. The larvae is a pale tan in colour, and each segment is expanded, with a dark, circular sucker in the centre to help the larva hold on to rocks in fast water. Little finger-like gills can also be seen on each segment.

Quite a treat to encounter some cute little Diptera in vials inadvertently included amongst my Newfoundland and Labrador mayfly vials: these are Nymphomyiids and blepharicerids.

Relationship of Trichoptera species in Iceland with Europe and North America In the present study we examine the geographic variation in the COI mtDNA barcode marker in eight Trichoptera species from Iceland to determine their postglacial colonisation history. The patterns in ...

Unraveling how Iceland’s #caddisflies colonised the island after the last Ice Age, this study uses COI mtDNA barcodes to trace multiple waves of arrival and unique Iceland-only lineages. The results reveal... doi.org/10.3897/zook...

#phylogeography #trichoptera

Hydrology Paper of the Day @richard-fewster.bsky.social on quantifying how Arctic peatlands change due to global warming: 12 peatlands and transects in Europe and Canada; drone aerial surface photography and 91 soil monoliths; quantitative methods of dating; and how peatlands have expanded.

Macro photo of a brown stink bug in face view on a leaf, guarding a tightly-clustered bunch of eggs that are shaped and colored exactly like a full tray of dark beer with foam on top.

Finally, the bug is back with a round of the Guinness.