About the talk:

Insects and other arthropods (like spiders and millipedes) are important parts of all terrestrial ecosystems. Whether you’re standing in an urban garden or an agricultural field, on the summit of a mountain or on the tundra, at the beach or in the forest, insects are all around you and playing key roles in food webs as decomposers, herbivores, pollinators, predators, and parasites. In this talk we will get up close and personal with insects through beautiful photography and stories about the ecology and natural history of insects from Newfoundland and Labrador and beyond. If you don’t already like insects, this will be an opportunity to learn more about how they affect everything from birds and other wildlife to human culture.

About the speaker:
Dr. Sean McCann is an entomologist and natural historian with a passion for photography, especially of insects and spiders. He completed his MSc in medical entomology at the University of Florida, and his PhD at Simon Fraser University, where he studied the Red-throated Caracara, a Neotropical falcon that is a specialist predator of social wasps. He now works as a Crop Entomologist for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in St. John’s. Across his career, Dr. McCann has studied the biology and behaviour of diverse animals including mosquitoes, wasps, ants, beetles, spiders, and birds. Dr. McCann blogs and shares his photography at Ibycter.com.