Canada's Most Distinct Species featuring Emma Kominek

Defender Radio and The Switch

Canada’s iconic wildlife include moose, beavers, and wolves. But of the many species of vertebrate, which are the most evolutionarily distinct? And why does that matter?

A team of researchers from Simon Fraser University (emma Kominek, Olivia Cornies, Arne Ø. Mooers, and Wildlife Preservation Canada's Hannah McCurdy-Adams) explored these questions in their paper, Evolutionary isolation of Canadian terrestrial vertebrate species, published in the journal The Canadian Field-Naturalist. The final list included some not so surprising results – like beavers being near the top for mammals, and some unusual species that aren’t commonly known, like mudpuppies, an amphibian that can be found in a relatively small range of southern Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.

To share more about the paper, how the species lists were developed, and why it’s important for conservationists to learn about, study coauthor Emma Kominek joins Defender Radio.

SHOW NOTES:

Episode photo by Chuck Miller / Getty Images

Evolutionary isolation of Canadian terrestrial vertebrate species: https://doi.org/10.22621/cfn.v137i4.2673

SFU's coverage of the study: https://www.sfu.ca/science/news/2024-news/move-along-moose--sfu-study-reveals-the--most-canadian--animals.html

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Defender Radio is produced by The Fur-Bearers (www.TheFurBearers.com), a charitable non-partisan organization whose mandate is to advocate on behalf of fur-bearing animals in the wild and in confinement, promote coexistence solutions in communities and protect the habitats of fur-bearing animals across Canada. You can follow The Fur-Bearers on Instagram (www.instagram.com/furbearers), Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/thefurbearers.bsky.social) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/FurFree).