Biodiversity lives in places! IMERSS, the Institute for Multidisciplinary Ecological Research in the Salish Sea, is an ongoing initiative that has engaged hundreds of individuals across a broad cross-section of society in a coordinated effort to document the flora and fauna of Galiano Island, BC. To date, our community has documented over 3,500 species, combining historical records with contemporary observations yielded through the citizen science platform iNaturalist. In collaboration with dozens of research scientists, we are currently formalizing this project in a series of biodiversity data papers, establishing a baseline record to guide future ecological research and monitoring. To further extend the reach of these efforts, our biodiversity informatics working group is building on Bio Galiano as a model framework to advance novel open-source information systems intended to increase community capacity for biodiversity research throughout the Salish Sea.

Speaker Andrew Simon is a biologist with over a decade of experience studying British Columbia’s interior and coastal ecosystems. He is perhaps most well recognized for his commitments to community-based biodiversity research as the curator of the Biodiversity Galiano project, for which he was recently recognized with an Islands Trust Community Stewardship Award. Symbiosis is the notion that inspired his love of natural history to begin with, and it is this notion that continues to inspire his local and regional commitments to community science.

This presentation will be online only (Zoom) on Thursday, April 30 at 7:30 pm. On the Monday preceding the event, Nature Vancouver members will receive the Zoom link in the weekly e-News.  Non-members are welcomed to email zoom-request@NatureVancouver.ca between the preceding Friday and Wednesday to register for the link.