Language: English with bilingual summaries in English and French
Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands Volume 4: Biodiversity and Systematics, Part 2 is the fourth volume in the series that provides an overview of Canada's grassland and its associated insects, mites, spiders, and their close relatives.
Volume 1, Ecology and Interaction in Grassland Habitats (Shorthouse and Floate 2010), reviews the ecological attributes and interactions of the arthropods in natural grasslands. Volume 2, Inhabitants of a Changing Landscape (Floate 2011), focuses on anthropogenic effects on grasslands and their arthropod fauna with a focus on agro-ecosystems. Volume 3, Biodiversity and Systematics, Part 1 (Cárcamo and Giberson 2014) opens with an overview of the biogeography of arthropods of Canadian grasslands, and provides a taxonomie summary, including checklists, of selected taxa of Myriapoda (eg. millipedes and centipedes), Arachnida (mites and spiders), Collembola, and Insecta.
Volume 4, Biodiversity and Systematics, Part 2 continues the taxonomic review of grassland arthropods, with special reference to the Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies), Coleoptera (four beetle groups), Diptera (the robberflies) and Hymnoptera (ants, ichneumons, brachonids, and bees).
With the publication of Arthopods of Canadian Grasslands, the Biological Survey of Canada hopes to increase awareness of the plight of Canada's grasslands, to draw attention to its associated arthropods and tor provide a baseline reference to support future studies of arthropods in these environments.
Donna J. Giberson is a professor with the Department of Biology at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown, where she teaches courses in entomology, ecology and scientific writing. For most of her research career, she has concentrated on the ecology, life histories and distribution of aquatic insects, especially from the Prairies, the Maritimes and the Canadian Arctic.
Héctor A. Cárcamo is a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), in Lethbridge, Alberta. His main research focus is the development of ecological strategies to manage insect pests of the prairie field crops, particularly biological control with parasitoids. Additional research topics include biodiversity studies of carabid beetles and spiders.