A compass to track the state of biodiversity

Tracking the plant and animal species present in Quebec and measuring the effects of climate change on biodiversity, this is the challenge offered by a new Internet portal created by Biodiversité Québec. The online platform launched Thursday, when Montreal hosts COP15, already includes more than 21 million observations made in the field. But over the years, it will be enriched to act as a compass on the state of nature in Quebec.

“There will be ambitious objectives that will be negotiated during COP15 — we will see where that will take us — but it takes mechanisms after that to check whether we are achieving these objectives. But there are not many structures around the world to do this monitoring,” explains Dominique Gravel, professor at the University of Sherbrooke and researcher at Biodiversité Québec.

The project has been simmering for ten years, supported by a scientific partnership bringing together the Center for Biodiversity Science of Quebec, the University of Sherbrooke and the Ministry of the Environment, the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks (MELCCFP).

The website has been designed to be user-friendly and is divided into four sections. It contains a collection of observations made in the field by the MELCCFP, scientists, by various partners and by citizens on 2,223 animal and plant species, inventories of fauna and flora developed in several regions of Quebec as well as indicators, such as habitat loss, the state of animal populations and protected areas.

All of this data is expected to evolve over the years to reflect observations made in the field and data that will continue to be collected. It will then be possible to measure the effect of climate change and to verify whether the objectives for the protection of biodiversity will really be achieved. For example, Biodiversité Québec compiles the inventories carried out every five years by the MELCCFP on 286 sites.

Some data dates back to the 1950s, but most of it was collected from the 2010s with the advent of smart phones and mobile applications that facilitated citizen observations.

The “sentinels” of the climate

Not all animal species have been listed on the portal, because Biodiversité Québec wanted to focus its efforts on those that respond quickly to temperature changes, such as birds, bats, dragonflies, butterflies, insects soil and some aquatic organisms. “The idea is to quickly get relevant information in a context of climate change,” says Dominique Gravel. “The best example is bats. A recording is made continuously throughout the summer. It gives us a diagram — we call it phenology — of their periods of activity and it allows us to locate their period of reproduction or their arrival, for migratory species. »

On the other hand, with trees, we could have to wait hundreds of years before observing changes in the forest, says the researcher.

The portal is not only aimed at scientists, but also targets decision-makers and the general public, young people in particular. A section also includes popular texts. “The communication aspect is the key”, says Dominique Gravel.

The project was funded by the Plan for a Green Economy, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and other private and public partners, but Biodiversité Québec wishes to be able to rely on more permanent funding. . “The worst thing that could happen to a portal like this is for it to become inactive. It has to be maintained,” acknowledges Mr. Gravel.

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