The Entomological Society of Canada‘s annual meeting in Halifax was a great success for our laboratory! Three members of the lab received awards as part of the President’s Prize competition. Congratulations to Katie (poster, first prize), Dorothy (runner-up, oral presentation: Forestry section), and Raphael (runner-up, oral presentation: ecology section). Here a photo of our group at the Westin Hotel, all smiles! (left to right: Dorothy, Katie, Raphael, Chris, Sarah & Crystal)

Overall the conference was very interesting, with a lot of relevant and interesting talks. Notably, there was a strong presence of research on pollination biology, and the Biological Survey of Canada’s symposium contained some terrific talks - including some good thinking about how to coordinate biodiversity data in Canada. I am continually impressed with Canadensys.

Now that we’ll back home, the hard work continues. We move forward with specimen processing and data analysis, and with the end of term fast approaching, teaching tends to occupy a lot of time.

Most of the laboratory is currently en route to Halifax, to attend the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of Canada, and this year it is co-hosted by the Acadian Entomological Society. Crystal, Katie, Laura and Sarah are all presenting some results from their research as part of the Northern Biodiversity Program - it’s exciting to see that we are starting to compile preliminary results from this project. Raphael is presenting his recent work on behavioural syndromes of jumping spiders, and Dorothy is presenting some of her findings on effects of forest fragmentation on patterns of herbivory. Chris is presenting in a symposium about community ecology, and has just finished a series of analyses related to fitting spider assemblages to null models. The ESC’s annual meeting is always a fun and productive event. To learn more about the conference, please visit this website (and the program can be downloaded here, also).