Language: English with bilingual summaries in English and French
Arthropods of Canadian Grassland Volume 3: Biodiversity and Systematics - Part 1 is the third volume in the series that provides an overview of Canada's grasslands and its associated insects, mites, spiders and their close relatives.
Volume 1, Ecology and Interactions in Grassland Habitats (Shorthouse and Floate 2010), reviews the ecological attributes and interactions of arthropods in natural grasslands. Volume 2, Inhabitants of a Changing Landscape (Floate 2011), focuses on the anthropogenic effects on grasslands and their arthropod fauna, with an emphasis on agroecosystems.
Volume 3, Biodiversity and Systematics, Part 1, opens with an overview of the biogeography of arthropods of Canadian grasslands and provides a taxonomic 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, will continue the taxonomic review of another 11 insect groups.
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.
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.
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.