The 2018 New Brunswick Museum Centre for Biodiversity Research BiotaNB project will soon be underway! From June 13 to 26, nearly 50 experts, volunteers and students from across Canada will descend for a second and final year to study the biodiversity of the Spednic Lake Protected Natural Area (PNA), near McAdam. Led by the NBM, this is the tenth annual BiotaNB project to discover and document the biodiversity of the Protected Natural Areas of New Brunswick. Last year’s BiotaNB, held later in August, provided a great deal of new information about the plant and animal species that inhabit this PNA, including the discovery of new fungi, new lichens, a new katydid, and a ladybird new to the Maritimes. This year, researchers are studying the PNA earlier in the season, when different life forms will be active or more visible. In addition to New Brunswick Museum staff and NBM Research Associates, experts from a number of other institutions and agencies from Canada and the United States are participating in the BiotaNB. The expertise is wide-ranging – A slime-mold expert from Pennsylvania, terrestrial snail and fungus specialists from British Columbia, a frog scientist from Florida, an earthworm specialist from Ontario, and an authority on beetles from Fredericton, to name but a few.
As well, there are several Artists-in-Residence, including Aleta Karstad, an experienced scientific illustrator and natural history artist returning from Ontario (and this year’s recipient of the Canadian Wildlife Federation Robert Bateman Award), and Mathieu Léger, a multidisciplinary contemporary artist based in Moncton, and a serial artist-in-residence. Award-winning writer and naturalist, Harry Thurston of Nova Scotia, will be the 2018 BiotaNB Poet-in-Residence.
On Saturday, June 23 from 2-7pm, a Public Open House will be held in the BiotaNB Field Lab, located in the McAdam Lions Community Centre. Come and meet some of the experts participating in the BiotaNB, and learn about their discoveries. BiotaNB artists-in-residence will be on hand as well during this event to share artistic interpretations.
The NBM wishes to acknowledge and thank the supporters who have made the 2018 BiotaNB possible through their contributions, including New Brunswick Environmental Trust Fund, New Brunswick Wildlife Trust Fund and New Brunswick Department of Energy and Resource Development.
For more information:
Caitlin Griffiths or Aristi Dsilva, Communications & Marketing, New Brunswick Museum
(506) 654-7059 or (506) 643-2358
info@nbm-mnb.ca