Monthly Archives: April 2014

Effects of Habitat Fragmentation on Swallowtail Butterflies

By Jenna Siu, Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario Jenna Siu is a M.Sc. Candidate in the Environment and Sustainability Collaborative Program, Department of Biology, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario Research was done under the supervision of Dr. Daria Koscinski and Dr. Nusha Keyghobadi. The following is a brief summary of Jenna's research work. Background: In southern Ontario some of the most threatened habitats occur in the Carolinian Zone, where major portions of prairies, savannahs and forests have been destroyed. These changes to the natural landscape have caused habitat loss and fragmentation; the breaking up of habitat into smaller patches creating more edges, or the boundary between two land cover types. Habitat fragmentation has been shown to have harmful impacts on native populations (e.g. the Acadian Flycatcher, the American Badger, and the Grey Ratsnake). To understand how…
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Short-Eared Owl sighting

Charles Welsh and his family, who farm north of Scotland, ON, were surprised one morning recently to find this beautiful Short-eared Owl sitting on their vehicle. The owl had a vole in its talons and seemed unperturbed by the curious humans as it proceeded to eat its supper in plain view. The Short-eared Owl spends its life in the Arctic, along the shores of Hudson Bay, but often winters in southern Ontario where it may occur in small groups.
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Freshwater mussels of Ontario

Those NFN members who braved the snowy roads on November 12, 2013, to attend our regular monthly meeting were treated to a unique presentation in the history of our club (attested to by Harry B. Barrett). Our distinguished guest speaker that evening, Dr. Todd J. Morris, is a Research Scientist with the Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Division of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). He is currently stationed in Burlington, Ontario at the Canada Centre for Inland Waters. He has been studying the unionid fauna of central Canada for the last 19 years. He is currently a member of the Biodiversity Science section of DFO and is responsible for leading DFO’s research program on freshwater mussel Species at Risk. His research focuses on the distributional patterns of aquatic organisms and the relative contribution of biotic and abiotic…
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