Have you ever been curious about the mammals you might run into while visiting the Gault Nature Reserve? What about the urban heat surrounding McGill’s downtown campus? Do you want to know where you can find wetlands at Macdonald campus?
All this information and more is now available in the McGill Biodiversity Atlas, a digital repository of biodiversity and environmental information about the University’s properties. It went live on May 22, the International Day of Biological Diversity.
An interactive map tracks the flora, fauna and fungi present on McGill’s downtown, Macdonald and Gault Nature Reserve sites, and houses such environmental data as tree canopy, green space and urban heat distribution. The atlas also contains a database of all biodiversity research conducted about McGill’s campuses, as well as multimedia stories exploring McGill’s trees, wildlife and more.
“Over 1,200 species have been observed on our campus spaces,” said Marie-Claude Carignan, Biodiversity Officer in the McGill Office of Sustainability. They include red-backed salamander, beaver and skunk. “The richness of our biodiversity – the sheer number of species – was very surprising to me.”
Monitoring progress
Supporting biodiversity is a key part of the university’s long-term sustainability initiatives.
Creating a biodiversity atlas is the first goal listed in McGill’s Biodiversity Plan; it’s also central to McGill’s Climate and Sustainability Strategy (2025-2030), which commits to being a Nature Positive university that acts in support of biodiversity.
Part of that commitment is the University’s intention to manage 30 per cent of its green space to foster biodiversity, a target whose implementation will be tracked on the McGill Biodiversity Atlas.
“The idea is that more and more of our campuses’ green space will fall under the category of biodiversity zones,” said Carignan. Those zones may be optimized by added planting, adapted mowing frequency, or targeted invasive species control.
The atlas also encourages users to participate in documenting, protecting or advancing McGill’s campus biodiversity: in addition to exploring biodiversity research and stories, they can discover biodiversity-friendly projects like the McGill staff gardens or Campus Crops, or document their own plant and animal observations using the iNaturalist app.
A living repository
The atlas’s data is generated by McGill community members (such as through BioBlitz events) and by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), an international network that provides open access to biodiversity data.
The atlas was produced by the McGill Office of Sustainability, McGill’s Geographic Information Centre (GIC) and the Québec Centre for Biodiversity Science, with support from the Sustainability Projects Fund.
It will be updated by student researchers at the GIC, which has agreed to support the McGill Biodiversity Atlas for the next five years.
“It’s a great resource, so we’re making sure it’s kept updated,” said Carignan. “We want the atlas to become a living repository of biodiversity at McGill.”
Have an idea on how to build a culture of sustainability on McGill campuses? Kickstart it with the Sustainability Projects Fund.