Communicating science with municipalities and decision-makers

The Birds and Trees team is highly committed to provide science advice and applied research findings to support the hard and important work of practitioners and decision-makers. Our team had the pleasure of attending two events at the interface of science and practice. In December, Dr. Barbara Frei was the plenary speaker at the first annual Journée de la biodiversité hosted by the Ville de Montreal. This event brought together municipal biologists, program officers, landscape architects and policy analysts from across the city’s municipal government. After presenting on all the team’s various research and activities, there was a 45 minute non-stop question period by the attendees.

In February, the Birds & the Trees group was well represented at the 2026 Quebec Center for Biodiversity Science’s annual symposia. The day before, Barbara was one of the science panelists highlighted in the workshop ‘Municipalities and Biodiversity: Integrating Science into Action’. Other B&T members presented talks or posters on various subjects including: the roles of private and public urban forests for biodiversity conservation (Mackenzie Guest, Concordia University), nest box use of American Kestrels across an urban gradient (Gabrielle Girard, McGill University), the effects of geolocators on warbler behaviour (Danaé Niflis), and bird richness related to urban yard features across pre-breeding migration and the breeding season (Jessica Liddell, McGill University).