By Erfan Bari, Master’s student at Concordia University

In September 2025, I had the opportunity to attend ENTO 25, the Royal Entomological Society’s annual meeting on insect science. It was an excellent chance to present my Master’s research, “The impact of temperature on the biological performance of the spruce budworm,” while also connecting with scientists from places like Brazil, Romania, and France. The meeting gave me a real sense of current research directions and where the field is heading.

What I valued most was the exchange of questions and ideas, getting thoughtful feedback from experts with different perspectives, and having the chance to ask my own questions and learn from others’ work. I was especially intrigued by related studies on different pest species and forest systems, which broadened my view of the field.

My research focuses on the eastern spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana), a major forest pest in Québec and across eastern North America. This species primarily feeds on balsam fir (Abies balsamea) and spruce species (Picea spp.), where repeated defoliation can lead to severe growth loss and widespread tree mortality, with major ecological and economic consequences for forest ecosystems and the forestry sector. I have been studying how temperature shapes the budworm’s biological performance, including growth and efficiency of food use, and how these traits may shift under warming conditions. I hope my results will help teams refine predictive outbreak and risk models under climate change scenarios. Presenting both a talk and a poster also reinforced how important it is to step outside one’s own project; seeing different ways to frame questions, analyze data, and design experiments is consistently eye-opening and strengthens how we approach our own research.

One thing I’ve noticed (just my own impression!) is that biodiversity research often has a local lens, with researchers focusing on the systems closest to where they live and work. Conferences bring those local perspectives together, letting us compare approaches, spot patterns across systems, and learn from each other’s contexts.

About Glasgow

I traveled from Montréal to the UK and discovered a very different way of living! First shock: driving on the left with the steering wheel on the right, and the pedestrian flow is reversed too, so you really have to look carefully before crossing (I was almost hit by a bus once!). Second: the double-decker buses are brilliant, you can pay a regular fare and enjoy great views from the top deck. There’s no tour guide, though, so you have to guess or use Google Maps to figure out whether you’re passing a landmark or just a neighborhood.

At the conference, I had the chance to see a historic Royal Entomological Society book with signatures I could view from about 50 cm away, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria, Charles Darwin, and Alfred Russel Wallace. Wow! The windy days there reminded me of Montréal’s coming winter, which somehow made me happy!

QCBS gratitude

I’m grateful to QCBS for the Excellence Award that allowed me to attend this conference and share my work on a kind of big stage. The QCBS initiatives are truly outstanding; whenever I talk about this center and what it offers, from different perspectives, people are amazed.

About the Author:

I’m Erfan Bari, a second-year Master’s at Concordia University, working on the eastern spruce budworm, a moth in the family Tortricidae native to the eastern United States and Canada. My work combines ecology, entomology, physiology, and a lot of biostatistics to interpret responses and results. I’m passionate about networking, communicating our science, and supporting diversity in research. My supervisor is Dr. Despland, a full professor at Concordia University, and I’m always grateful to her for the support that made this project possible.