Maxim Larrivée / Alain Cuerrier

Maxim Larrivée has a master’s degree in landscape ecology from Carleton University in Ottawa and a doctorate in entomology from McGill University. He specializes in the study of the impacts of natural and human-produced perturbations on the biodiversity of certain groups of arthropods, including spiders, beetles and butterflies. He’s the designer of eButterfly, a citizen-scientist participation project aimed at tracking over the long term the distribution of Canada’s butterflies in the context of global changes. Maxim is also interested in the management of information pertaining to biodiversity in Canada as well as in the development of educational tools designed to raise awareness in young people about entomology, climate change and the use of Web tools processing information on biodiversity.

Alain Cuerrier is a botanist at the Jardin botanique de Montréal, member-researcher at the Institut de recherche en biologie végétale (IRBV) and adjunct professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the Université de Montréal. His research deals with local and traditional nature-related knowledge. He’s forged collaborations with the Québec Inuit, Cree, Innu and Naskapi as well as with the Squamish of British Columbia. Some of his students are working in French Guiana and Costa Rica. Beyond the field of ethnobotany, Alain Cuerrier studies the perception of nature and climate change among the First Nations of Canada. He’s also interested in traditional Native American medicine, particularly Arctic plants, those of the boreal forest and more recently those of certain tropical countries. In addition, he’s part of the Team in Aboriginal Antidiabetic Medicines of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and is treasurer of the International Society of Ethnobiology. He’s published over 60 articles and more than 12 books in the framework of his research. He is associate editor of the Journal of Ethnobiology and of Ethnobotany Research and Applications.