By Nikki Moore, a PhD student at McGill University

My trip to Vancouver in June 2022 was a trip of firsts; not only was it my first time presenting my research at a scientific conference, but it was my first time seeing the landscapes of Canada’s West Coast. In different ways, both experiences left me inspired and encouraged to return home and continue my quest to pursue ecological questions with answers that might help to preserve the diversity of life. 

Attending the Biennial Conference of the International Biogeography Society was a big deal for me. As a first year Master’s student, it was my first time giving a contributed talk at an international conference. Since the last year of my undergraduate degree, I had been working hard on a project that aims to understand how temperature limits the ranges of ectothermic animal species and finally the project was at a place where I had results that I was confident in. I was eager to share them with the scientific community! Although as much as I was eager, I was also nervous. Knowing that famous biogeographers I look up to might choose to attend my talk was too much for me to even think about. But, thanks to the pre-conference jitters, I was well-prepared and my talk went over smoothly. The boost of adrenaline from public speaking mixed with seeing the excitement about my results from the other biogeographers  left me glowing. As the conference came to a close by the end of the week, I was feeling more and more inspired to return home and push my work forwards by asking new questions inspired by the conversations I had. 

And then came the nature. After the conference, I made the most out of my trip by meeting up with a friend to hike in Squamish and to walk part of the Juan de Fuca trail on Vancouver Island. Having grown up in Ontario, I was accustomed to the hilly, forested ecosystems and endless farmland of eastern Canada. While beautiful in their own way, these landscapes have nothing on the rugged mountains and coasts of British Columbia. The gigantic trees of the old-growth forests towering above. The race of your heart as you see a bear appear along the trail in front of you in the mist. The coastline stretching out before you at low tide, revealing the sea creatures the water normally hides. These sights were ones I had never seen before and are ones that I hope everyone gets to see at some point in their life. This experience, too, left me wanting to go home and continue my work.

I am reminded of a quote by Edward Abbey: “It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space.” Whether researchers or not, the health of the relationship we each hold with the natural world is so important. This relationship is what inspires us to care, to try our best to conserve the natural world we depend upon. I was reminded of this on my trip, and it is something I hope to never forget.   

About the author: Nikki Moore is a PhD student at McGill University in Montreal. She began researching topics in macroecology and biogeography related to species responses to climate change during her undergraduate degree. Nikki’s research referenced in this blog post about how temperature limits species ranges is to be published over the next few weeks in Nature Ecology & Evolution under the title “Temperate species underfill their tropical thermal potentials on land”.