Tag Archives: Eric Taylor

Freshwater fishes topic at Vancouver’s (Canada) Café Scientifique January 2014 get together

Vancouver’s next Café Scientifique is being held in the back room of the The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. [at Seymour St.], Vancouver, Canada), on Tuesday, January 28,  2014 at 7:30 pm. Here’s the meeting description (from the Jan.. 21, 2014 announcement),

… Our speaker for the evening will be Eric Taylor, a zoology professor at UBC [University of British Columbia] and director of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum.  The title and abstract for his talk is:

Fluviatili Pisces Diversi (The Diversity of Freshwater Fishes): Underappreciated and Under Threat

The term fish biodiversity immediately conjures up images of strikingly-coloured fishes on a coral reef, but over 40% of the more than 33,000 fish species occur in fresh water which comprises only 0.8% of the Earth’s surface area. Freshwater fishes are, therefore, the most diverse group of vertebrates per unit area on Earth. Furthermore, recent research suggests that the rate of the origin of new biodiversity is greater in fresh water than in the marine realm. Within this context, my presentation will discuss general patterns of biodiversity in British Columbia freshwater fishes, its nature and origins, and explore a few examples of evolutionary marvels of our native freshwater fishes. Finally, I will outline some of the key threats to our freshwater fish bioheritage.

You can find out more about the Beaty Biodiversity Museum here. Note: It is located on the University of British Columbia lands and on the university’s website.