Mon jardin est finalement planté! En suivant les principes du jardinage écologique, je vise la promotion de la biodiversité dans mon jardin. J’essaie de cultiver autant de variétés de légumes que possible plutôt que de m’attarder sur la quantité que j’aide à produire – après tout, ce sont les graines qui font le travail (avec l’aide du sol, du Soleil et de la pluie, bien sûr). Je ne fais que travailler la terre et semer les graines!

Je laisse des fleurs sauvages pousser dans mon jardin. J’ai commencé à inclure une rotation naturelle au lieu de planter des fleurs annuelles. Je suis confiant que la mémoire du sol apportera une grande variété de fleurs. Et de la variété pas seulement en nombre d’espèces, mais aussi en temps de floraison c’est-à-dire que les plantes ne fleurissent pas toutes au même moment. Ceci est idéal pour les pollinisateurs (abeilles, papillon, etc.) qui cherchent constamment à se raviver des fleurs. En plus, la variété de plantes attire divers insectes.

Advancing the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Canada
A Survey of Economic Instruments for the Conservation & Protection of Biodiversity by Sustainable Properity
http://www.sustainableprosperity.ca/article1431

More beetles = more biodiversity?

Entomologist uncovered 10 additional beetle species
Published Thursday May 26th, 2011

Nature: New discoveries join list of hundreds of insects New Brunswick man has found

A leading New Brunswick entomologist has discovered 10 species of beetle in the province that are new to science. For years, Reginald Webster has been working to document and better understand some of New Brunswick's less glamourous biodiversity.

The 10 species, wh3ich the world never knew existed, are all small rove beetles, about two to five millimetres long.

But Webster said their tiny size doesn't mean they're not important. If they disappeared it wouldn't necessarily make an immediate apparent difference, he said, but every creature plays a part in an ecosystem and the disappearance of one could lead to the disappearance of another.

"You'd lose a strand of the web," he said. "And with every strand you lose, the web gets weaker."

Webster is currently working on a paper about some of his discoveries with colleague Jan Klimaszewski, an insect research scientist at Natural Resources Canada and the curator of the Rene Martineau Insectarium in Quebec. The paper will join the other beetle reports they have co-authored for ZooKeys, an international, peer-reviewed bio-diversity journal.

Donald McAlpine, the head of the zoology section at the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John, said Webster is the ultimate beetle savant in New Brunswick.

These 10 new species join the hundreds of beetles he has added to the list of known species in New Brunswick over the past five years. Webster said the goal is to get a baseline set of data so it can be used in the future to show population changes and study the possible causes, such as global warming or forestry.

However, Webster said very little is known yet about the biology of these new species, so their actual purpose and function isn't clear.

"People go to (the) moon for new discovery but do not realize that we know so little about (for example) our insect fauna next door," Klimaszewski wrote in an email. "Those little creatures ... are driving nutrients in forest litter and soil and let the trees grow instead of just accumulating debris."

Webster said a lot of human knowledge is lacking simply because "no one is looking."

No one except Webster. He said he would search on his hands and knees, turning pebbles along a brook. He found another in the ant nest in his backyard that turned out to be new to science.

"Nobody does that. But the result is that I'm finding all kinds of unusual species that just weren't known," he said.

The research also revealed more about some habitats that Webster said aren't well sampled, such as some of New Brunswick's old growth forests and marshes.

The biggest problem now, Webster said, is that when someone finds what she or he thinks is a new species, he or she must check to make sure it is not an invading species that made its way from Europe or Asia.

Glamorous or not, Klimaszewski writes, the beetle research is important.

"Look in the past ... how much our ignorance on different subjects led to the irreplaceable damage to our environment."