On Friday October 14th we had a small celebration of the RNS Program’s 20th Anniversary at the University Club at the University of Victoria. People seemed to enjoy the slides of 100 student final projects (ER390s) from the last 10 years. Have a look–it’s in two parts. Part 1 (PDF, 8.6 MB) | Part 2 (PDF, 7.3 MB)
Upcoming Events
The following are presentations and a course soon to be given by Val Schaefer:
Restoration of Natural Systems Program 20th Anniversary Celebration October 14, 2016.
Urban Tree Walk October 17, 2016. Fairfield. 10:00-12:00.
Urban Tree Walk. October 24, 2016. James Bay. 10:00-12:00
ER331 Urban Restoration and Sustainable Agriculture November 9-13 2016. A 5-day intensive course held on the University of Victoria campus.
Garry Oak Ecosystem Recovery Team Colloquium November 18, 2016.
Presentations at Society for Ecological Restoration International Conference in Manchester, England
Val presented two papers at the upcoming SERI 2015 conference in Manchester, August 23-27. In the Soils in Restoration Ecology 1 session on the morning of Tuesday, August 25th he will present on “Soil micro-arthropods as indicator species to determine when a planting on a degraded site has become a functional ecological community. On the afternoon of August 25 he will present in the Education 3 session on “Using problem-based learning to teach ecological restoration: Three examples.”
Rain Gardens Study Reports Available
The RNS Program undertook the Rainy Day Solutions Project to examine the biodiversity values of rain gardens, looking at plant ecology and garden design from the perspective of plant associations. The project was funded by the Real Estate Foundation of BC, Mitacs and the City of Victoria. This was part of a larger study in three parts – hydrology, contaminants and biodiversity. The Civil Engineering Program at the University of Victoria is investigating water flows and the Chemistry Department will be looking at contaminants. The City of Victoria will also be examining their rain gardens from the perspective of hydrology and chemical contaminants. The Rainy Day Solutions project conducted by the RNS Program compared rain gardens as they were designed to as-built to what has survived at the sites years later. The work was conducted by a combination of both student coursework for credit, graduate student research and paid student time. One new rain garden was also created as part of the study at Oak and Orca Bioregional School in Victoria. The reports are available from the “Rain Gardens” tab on this website.
New Article on Ecosystem Thresholds
Val just published an article called “Detecting the threshold between ornamental landscapes and functional ecological communities: soil microarthropods as indicator species.” The paper was co-authored with Morgan Hocking, a colleague of his in the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria. The article is at the following link:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11252-015-0467-3?sa_campaign=email/event/articleAuthor/onlineFirst
Many of Val’s other scientific articles can be obtained through: https://www.academia.edu/
Victoria Tree Walk Brochures
The brochures for the five tree walks Val’s given in different Victoria neighbourhoods are now available under the Publications tab.