Welcome to the August edition of the IBioS newsletter! This month, we're welcoming a new member, Dr. Eric Mensah Kumeh, to IBioS, as well as congratulating various IBioS members for receiving a 2026 NSERC Discovery Grant! Don't forget to check out the SING Canada event recap that Dr. Warren Cardinal-McTeague co-hosted! Thank you for reading, and send us an email if you have any journal articles or events you'd like featured in the September newsletter! | IBioS is excited to announce our new member! Check out the people page on the IBioS website for more information. | Dr. Eric Mensah Kumeh Assistant Professor Department of Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Land and Food Systems Eric Mensah Kumeh is an Assistant Professor in Forest Resources Management and the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia. An interdisciplinary scholar of critical agroforestry and land-use and supply-chain governance, he uses political ecology, decoloniality and equity frameworks to examine how power shapes who governs and benefits from the forest–farm nexus across the Global South. He holds a doctorate from the University of Hohenheim, Germany, was a postdoctoral researcher at the Natural Resources Institute Finland, University of Oxford, England and is a former development practitioner who has implemented FAO-, EU- and NORAD-funded projects. Read more here! | IBioS would also like to congratulate the faculty members below who've received a 2026 NSERC Discovery Grant! Dr. Juli Carrillo - 'Tipping the scales: Local and landscape level drivers of insect abundance, diversity, and function across heterogenous environments.' Dr. Kai Chan - 'Toward a Harmonic City: Effects of Ecological Food Subsidies on Ecosystem Services and One Health.' Dr. Tara Martin - 'Disentangling Impacts of Cumulative Threats to Inform Conservation Decisions Under Global Change.' Dr. Laura Parfrey - 'Understanding the ecology and evolution of microbial symbioses with kelp.' Dr. Michelle Tseng - 'Quantifying the importance of species interactions on population and community responses to warming temperatures.' Learn more here! | Summer internship for INdigenous peoples in Genomics (SING) Canada - Event Recap | This past July, IBios member Dr. Warren Cardinal-McTeague co-led SING Canada with Kim Tallbear, where Indigenous students, researchers, community fellows, and faculty came together for a week-long program for hands-on scientific training, knowledge sharing, and critical conversations. The past weekend was the first full workshop in three years, and the program was held at McGill University and the Kahnawake Mohawk Nation. It is now being run out of Dr. Cardinal-McTeague's lab at UBC. Please read more about the extraordinary week by clicking the button below. Read more here! | California's Yosemite National Park has experienced a long history of human–black bear (Ursus americanus) interactions, particularly where high-quality habitat overlaps with recreation. A 3-month park closure at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 provided a rare opportunity to investigate bear responses to infrastructure with and without human presence. Using global positioning system (GPS) collar data from 30 black bears (2014–2022), we evaluated behavioral responses across multiple scales, including home range size, habitat selection, behavioral state, and diel activity, during periods of normal visitation and closure. Read the full journal here. | In settler colonial countries such as Canada, increasing recognition of Indigenous rights and attention to Indigenous fire stewardship systems are resulting in calls for more collaborative decision making and practice. However, many collaborative processes fail to address knowledge inequities or give sufficient attention to the role of power and politics in shaping knowledge outcomes and processes. In this study we use the theoretical lens of co-production to examine how distinct forms of expertise and authority materialize and are co-produced in the context of wildfire response and recovery, and how this shapes processes of Indigenous engagement in collaborative wildfire governance. Read the full journal here. | Soils are living systems, but much of the biodiversity that supports healthy ecosystems remains hidden belowground and largely invisible in policy and land-use decisions. In this Policy and Practice Review, Dr. Zelalem Taye uses British Columbia as a case jurisdiction to ask how soil biodiversity can move from being recognized in principle to being measured, monitored, and used in practice. The article argues that genomic tools, including soil eDNA, metabarcoding, and metagenomics, can help make belowground biodiversity more visible and measurable. However, Dr. Taye emphasizes that genomics alone are not enough. To inform restoration, forestry, conservation, ecosystem-health, and land-stewardship decisions, genomic data need to become decision-grade evidence through shared standards, regional baselines, co-governed observatories and living labs, Indigenous data governance, and clear pathways for policy uptake. Read the full journal here. | Bumble bees are important pollinators of crops and native plants, yet face widespread declines linked to agricultural intensification and parasite pressure. Here, we investigate how landscape-scale agricultural management and bumble bee community composition shape microparasite prevalence across an intensification gradient in southwestern British Columbia, where the commercially reared Bombus impatiens has recently become naturalized. Read the full journal here. | Check out the publications page on the IBioS website for more journal article highlights. | "You are sitting at a picnic table on a summer afternoon when a wasp lands near your plate, or an ant climbs onto your hand. Almost instantly, the reflex takes over. You swat, you flick, you recoil." Read the full article here. | "Coyotes are here to stay, say authors of a new study which examined contributing factors to nine months of aggressive coyote encounters that resulted in a cull of 11 coyotes in Vancouver’s largest urban park." Read the full article here. | Check out the news page on the IBioS website for more news article highlights. | Contact Us University of British Columbia
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