Monday, July 27, 2020

Whistler BioBlitz 2020 : Biologists Having A Blast!

The Fire of Life: metabolism and energy flow in animals and ecosystems by ecologist Jordan Rosenfeld

Jordan is an aquatic ecologist who lives in Vancouver. His childhood was spent in Ontario collecting bugs and falling into streams. He eventually blundered out to the west coast, where he studies the effect of habitat on ecological processes in streams and energetic constraints on fish distribution and abundance. His specific research is focused on modelling fish habitat, habitat requirements of fish species at risk, optimal stream flows, bioenergetic modelling of juvenile salmonid growth, and understanding how habitat structure affects energy flow in streams. In his spare time Jordan likes to sit on a couch watching TV.

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"Metabolism has been called the fire of life because low-temperature oxidation of organic matter is what powers animal (and plant) life on planet earth.  Although metabolic differentiation isn't obvious like wing shape or colour on birds and butterflies, it underlies much of global diversity.  I will consider variation in metabolism from animals to plants to ecosystems, and present a bunch of random factoids that I Googled on the internet at the last minute or just made up."

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In July, we are planning on hosting scientists for the field portion of BioBlitz. What makes BioBlitz so exciting is that every year BioBlitz scientists find on average 200 species that we didn’t know existed here. The Whistler Biodiversity Project already has a list of over 4,300 species so to keep finding new ones is amazing. There is so much to discover right in our own backyard!

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