Category: The Conversation

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Elizabeth Baisley, Assistant Professor, political studies, Queen’s University, Ontario

In the wake of Trans Day of Visibility, the risks of being seen are clearer than ever, from rising hate crimes and online harassment to the spread of anti-trans legislation.

But visibility alone is not enough. Trans people are still systematically under-counted or obscured in the data that shapes policy.

In an era when policy and even advocacy are increasingly data-driven, counting trans people properly in data remains essential — without it, inequality cannot be adequately addressed.

To do so, we need to improve data collection, analysis and sharing practices.

Current data collection methods fall short

Although governments and organizations are increasingly collecting data on trans people, current methods can lead to under-counting.

When Canada became the first country in the world to publish census data on trans and non-binary people, it collected that information using a household questionnaire. Parents of trans youth might have been the ones filling out the answers for their children.

This likely contributes to under-counting because younger people are typically more likely to identify as trans — except 15- to 19-year-olds, who often still live with their parents.

The drop-off is lower in countries like Scotland, which use private, individual questionnaires, offering a potential model for others.

But even when trans people are included in data sets, they can disappear during analysis.

Grouping LGBTQ2S+ data can be misleading

Trans people can disappear during analysis when grouped with other LGBTQ2S+ people, a pattern seen across both academia and community-based research.

For example, studies on political candidates that treat LGBTQ2S+ people as a single group often find little evidence of discrimination, yet studies examining trans candidates separately show that they face voter bias.

Similarly, while LGBTQ2S+ candidates overall raise less money than straight, cisgender candidates, the causes differ. For many sexual minority candidates, funding gaps stem from structural inequalities in incumbency, past political experience and district competitiveness, while trans candidates would still raise less money even if those inequalities disappeared.

Disaggregated analyses therefore show that targeted interventions — such as bias-reduction efforts and dedicated funds — remain necessary for trans candidates.

Some organizations have recognized the perils of aggregation and worked to produce research that makes trans people and their experiences visible. The Community-Based Research Centre (CBRC), Canada’s leading data collector on queer and trans health, offers a compelling example.

Initially focused on cisgender gay, bisexual and queer men, CBRC later expanded to include trans men, non-binary and Two-Spirit people. However, as samples broadened further to include all queer and trans identities, subgroup-specific findings risked being overshadowed unless data were disaggregated in reporting. In response, the organization began producing research that specifically examines trans experiences.

But even when data are collected and analyzed appropriately, access remains an obstacle.

Barriers to accessing trans-specific data

Sharing data can also pose barriers to trans-specific advocacy and policymaking when that data is inaccessible or only released in aggregate forms.

The 2021 census highlights this issue. Apart from Statistics Canada’s original release and a report showing poorer socioeconomic outcomes, we still know very little about trans people.

Statistics Canada usually only makes gender-based data from the 2021 census publicly available under the categories “Men+” and “Women+,” randomly assigning non-binary people to either group and not indicating whether anyone is trans.

If researchers want information about trans people, they must request access to a Research Data Centre through a lengthy process involving security clearance, fingerprinting, a credit check and long wait times, making it difficult to study these communities.

Steps to improve trans visibility

A few practical and co-ordinated changes in how data are collected, analyzed and shared would improve trans visibility. Here are four ways to start:

1. Involve trans people in data collection, analysis and publishing decisions. Inclusion may strengthen both legitimacy and data quality, as trans people may propose questions that elicit better responses from their communities. Lived knowledge can therefore inform analysis and decisions about sharing results.

2. Build disaggregation into reporting requirements for governments and organizations. If we care about gender-based inequalities, data must be disaggregated to identify distinct barriers and design targeted responses. Without it, policy and advocacy will miss those most affected.

3. Design data collection procedures to include trans people. Gender or sex questions are widespread. The question is not whether we collect data on trans people — we already do — but whether we design collection procedures with everyone in mind, allowing accurate counting and disaggregated analyses.

4. Look for opportunities to analyze and share data on trans people. Organizations often have statistical and ethical concerns around data on trans people. Although statistical analyses usually require large groups, it is still possible to analyze data on small groups when their patterns differ clearly from others. Alternatively, data can also be examined qualitatively.

Although we share ethical concerns around trans people’s privacy, there is often a way to share data without making individuals identifiable.

Visibility is complicated, but being counted in data is essential.

While better practices won’t fix everything, they are a good place to start. Because without better data, we cannot design effective policy or advocate for meaningful change. Let’s ensure trans people are counted, too.

Elizabeth Baisley has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Francesco MacAllister-Caruso previously worked for the Community-Based Research Centre (CBRC) from 2020 to 2025.

Quinn M. Albaugh has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Counting trans people: Why better data collection is essential for better policy – https://theconversation.com/counting-trans-people-why-better-data-collection-is-essential-for-better-policy-278957

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Federico Riva, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, Carleton University

About 70 per cent of the species on Earth are insects. They are fundamental components of most ecosystems: they comprise half of the biomass on the planet, pollinate flowers, decompose dead organic matter and play multiple roles in food webs. They are quite literally everywhere, including in and around our homes, but they have also been declining at alarming rates in many places.

The societal implications of this potential “insectageddon” could be catastrophic, including losses in human food production. However, confirming suspicions of global declines is difficult because we lack reliable data on insect populations in many parts of the world.

We simply don’t have the infrastructure around the planet that would allow us to track insect populations altogether. That means we don’t know how insect populations are responding to different global changes, and we might be failing to design effective conservation policies and track whether current actions are working.

Efforts to rapidly generate global indicators of insect population trends are therefore crucial. In our recently published paper, colleagues and I explain how a global butterfly index could help track butterfly populations worldwide — and how we can reach this important objective.

Butterflies: The poster child of insects

One reason why insects have been neglected in conservation is that they are often ignored — if not feared — by many people. Many of us have been brought up to be cautious around insects, whether they’re bees, spiders or other critters.

There is, on the other hand, broad interest in vertebrate species. Bird-watching has been part of human societies for hundreds of years. The fact that larger animals capture public interest has arguably stimulated global efforts to calculate indicators of trends in their populations, like the Living Planet Index by the World Wildlife Fund and other organizations.

Read more:
What’s the difference between moths and butterflies? Look at their antennae

While insects have generally not benefited from the attention that other animals have received, butterflies are one exception to this rule. These insects, with their captivating patterns and colours, have long fascinated people and have been represented in many traditions across cultures.

Our love for butterflies is reflected in a substantial history of monitoring. In the 1970s, the British entomologist Ernest Pollard initiated the practice of recording butterfly populations on his butterfly walks in England. Fifty years later, hundreds of “Pollard walks” are done across Europe and in many other regions of the world.

Recording the presence of a species in an area is important work. However, equally fundamental are efforts that capture changes in insect populations over time. Nonetheless, a global synthesis of butterfly population monitoring programs has, to date, been missing.

A global butterfly index

Our recent paper fills that gap. We co-ordinated an international consortium with the goal of better understanding opportunities and challenges for calculating a global butterfly index that captures trends across butterfly populations worldwide.

Bringing together scientists from all continents except Antarctica, we were able to collate an incredible dataset including more than 45,000 population trends for over 1,000 butterfly species. We used this data set to:

1. Identify where current efforts stand in terms of taxonomic and spatial coverage of the global butterfly fauna.

2. Calculate the first version of a global butterfly index.

3. Evaluate gaps and limitations to address before moving forward.

Despite an unprecedented effort, we found that only populations of around five per cent of species worldwide have been monitored.

It’s important to note that the data set is mostly concentrated in Europe and North America and biased in favour of generalist species (those able to survive in diverse environments) as well as species easier to detect.

Nonetheless, we found that species are on average declining, and sensitive butterflies expected to suffer from global change tended to decline more steeply than the rest of our sample. Populations outside of Europe and North America were too sparse to support robust inferences.

Read more:
Butterflies declined by 22% in just 2 decades across the US – there are ways you can help save them

Global Butterfly Week

Developing this study left us with a few lessons learned. There is substantial work to do if we aim to calculate a truly global indicator of butterfly population trends.

For instance, many parts of the Global South will need support to swiftly develop national monitoring programs, and research in the tropics is needed to better understand what monitoring methods would work best in hyper-diverse regions.

The good news is that butterflies are already one of the most visible and monitored insect groups, which will ameliorate the challenges associated with developing indicators of insect populations. Existing monitoring schemes can provide a template upon which new initiatives can be developed.

Ultimately, developing a global butterfly index will be key to providing long-overdue tracking of insect population changes. Crucially, it could also act as a flagship for broader insect conservation.

Governments are expected to set measurable biodiversity targets in line with their commitments under international agreements such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. However, insects remain largely overlooked in these targets, and it’s impossible to set meaningful targets without robust indicators.

Developing a robust butterfly index is therefore fundamental to help guide conservation and to better understand the scale of the biodiversity crisis, as well as to communicate it to the public.

Butterflies carry a strong emotional value. That can help build support for conservation in a way that less appreciated insects cannot achieve.

Our consortium is helping to create such momentum: this year, members of our team are kick-starting a Global Butterfly Week and conversations around formalizing an international organization are under way.

We are hoping that colleagues interested will join us for the next iterations of these projects. Please reach out.

Federico Riva has received funding from the Horizon program.

– ref. A global butterfly index could advance insect conservation worldwide – https://theconversation.com/a-global-butterfly-index-could-advance-insect-conservation-worldwide-279408

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sabrina Rondeau, Postdoctoral Researcher in Pollinator Ecology, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

In most bumblebee species, the queens spend their winters buried underground in a tiny cavity the size of a grape. For six to nine months, they enter a deep sleep-like state called diapause, waiting for spring.

As climate change brings more intense rainfall in many regions, these overwintering queens face increasing risks of unstable underground conditions, including flooding.

It’s a good thing, then, that these insects can survive days underwater without drowning. Remarkably, our new research reveals they achieve this through a process of continually breathing while submerged for up to eight days.

It began with a lab accident

We initially discovered that overwintering bumblebee queens can survive submersion due to an accident.

During an experiment at the University of Guelph, some of the tubes in which queens were overwintering in the lab refrigerator inadvertently filled with water.

Initially, we assumed the queens had died. But after emptying out the water, they began to move and soon recovered. This suggested that bumblebee queens might be able to survive submersion.

So, we designed a follow-up experiment involving 143 common eastern bumblebee queens (Bombus impatiens).

This confirmed it was no fluke: the queens withstood complete submersion for up to a week.

This raised an intriguing question: how can this terrestrial insect pollinator survive underwater? Answering it required a different approach — we needed to study their physiology.

The heart of the colony

The queen is the heart of a bumblebee colony and its only chance of producing the next generation. While we often hear the buzz of workers visiting flowers during the summer, queens are rarely seen. They spend much of the season inside the nest, laying eggs that will become workers and, later in the summer, males and new queens.

When winter comes, most members of the colony die and only the newly produced queens survive. After mating, these new queens disperse and burrow underground, each settling into a tiny cavity where they enter diapause.

When spring finally returns, the queens that survived their long underground sleep emerge from their burrows and begin the important task of founding a new colony.

Read more:
Worker honey bees can sense infections in their queen, leading to revolt

Breathing underwater

To understand how these queens can survive submersion, we studied their breathing and metabolism in our lab at the University of Ottawa.

During diapause, queens are already in extreme energy-saving mode. The energy they need to stay alive (known as their metabolic rate) drops by more than 99 per cent. When submerged, energy needs drop even further. With such tiny oxygen demands, underwater breathing becomes possible.

But how did we determine whether queens are actually breathing underwater? One way is by measuring the gases exchanged with the surrounding water. We did this and the results were striking: queens continuously consumed oxygen and released carbon dioxide underwater throughout an eight-day period of submersion.

Many aquatic insects use a simple trick to breathe underwater. A thin layer of air clings to their body, allowing them to use their normal air-breathing system — the tracheal system. Oxygen from the surrounding water slowly diffuses into this air layer. Bumblebee queens likely rely on the same mechanism.

Still, underwater respiration alone does not fully meet the queen’s energy needs. To bridge the gap, queens also produce some energy through anaerobic metabolism — a process that does not require oxygen. This pathway produces lactic acid, which we detected in queens during submersion.

These physiological tricks allow queens to survive underwater, but come at a cost. After resurfacing, queens spend several days recovering, using far more energy than they would have if they had never taken the plunge.

Read more:
Below freezing but still moving: How salamanders stay active in winter

An unexpected resilience

Bumblebee queens spend the winters alone, buried underground and relying on stored energy to survive until spring. Their ability to tolerate days of submersion — and even breathe underwater — reveals an unexpected resilience to one of the hazards of life below ground.

This matters because bumblebee colonies depend entirely on the survival of overwintering queens. If a queen dies during winter, the colony she would have founded the following spring will never exist.

This ability to survive submersion could play an important — and previously overlooked — role in the resilience of threatened bumblebee populations.

Even in terms of familiar and comparatively well-studied insects like bumblebees, there is still so much to learn about the surprising ways they cope with environmental challenges.

Sabrina Rondeau received funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Fonds de recherche du Québec—Nature et technologies and the Weston Family Foundation.

Charles-Antoine Darveau receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Discovery Grants program.

Nigel Raine receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Horizon Europe ProPollSoil project, the Canada Foundation for Innovation Innovation Fund, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness, the Canadian Wildlife Federation and the Weston Family Foundation.

– ref. Queen bumblebees can breathe underwater — for days. We discovered how – https://theconversation.com/queen-bumblebees-can-breathe-underwater-for-days-we-discovered-how-278175

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By John Duncan, Director of the Ethics, Society and Law Program; Academic Director of the Ideas for the World Program, University of Toronto

The Iranian regime is certainly brutal. But it’s also powerful as it continues to project its might after a month of illegal air strikes by the United States and Israel.

Read more:
Iran’s attacks drone on, with the U.S. at risk of losing the war

Iran is in the top 10 per cent of countries by size and population, has the third largest proven petroleum reserves and controls strategically crucial geography.

Furthermore, both the regime and many ordinary Iranians are prepared to defend the country. Since 1953, when the U.S. helped orchestrate a coup to overthrow Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, Iranians have understood they’re in America’s crosshairs.

This was especially true after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew the shah and during the U.S.-backed Iraq war against Iran that killed a million Iranians in the 1980s. As a result, Iran has spent decades beefing up and decentralizing its military capability.

In contrast, Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned U.S. President Donald Trump in February that the U.S. was short on both munitions and allied support for a war against Iran. Israel, America’s partner in war, is also short, especially in interceptor munitions. Trump and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the concerns, which suggests they planned a short war.

What are Trump’s options?

Critics have accused Trump of dragging the U.S. — or allowing it to be dragged — into a “forever war.” Those critics include those in his MAGA base, a problem for Trump as he anticipates November’s mid-term elections.

One unconventional option that might expedite victory, discussed during Trump’s first term, is to use nuclear weapons against Iran. Trump has said nukes won’t be used, but he’s well-known for erratic reversals.

A nuclear strike might expedite surrender, but it took two strikes on Japan in 1945 before the Japanese surrendered, and, failing an Iranian surrender, several strikes might be required to destroy the military capability distributed across Iran’s 31 provinces. Because many Americans would be appalled by a nuclear attack, putting the mid-terms at risk, the nuclear option is unlikely.

Much of the concern about Trump’s election machinations heading into the mid-terms is focused on the manipulation of procedures and officials. The legacy of the Jan. 6, 2021 attacks on the U.S. Capitol is one extreme possibility, as is manipulating the Iran war to achieve electoral gains.

Trump will probably lean into his rhetorical strengths and try to convince Americans the U.S. has won when it hasn’t. Claiming victory in the face of its absence is not new to him. Even in his second term, Trump continues to push the false claim that he won the 2020 election.

Consider the bizarre drama that started on March 21 when Trump and Iran exchanged dire threats. Then, out of the blue, Trump declared the existence of peace talks, which Iran denied. Perhaps they are imaginary talks on the way to an imaginary victory for Trump.

Read more:
Why Donald Trump is such a relentless bullshitter

Mission accomplished?

It seems clear Trump is planning to declare victory well ahead of the mid-terms — and in part because of them. Such a strategy would involve baiting opponents into “forever war” criticisms, only to ridicule them in stump speeches, generating the image of a president who finishes his wars.

A declared victory in Iran and a timely exit, in addition to the liberation of Venezuela and a possible Cuban coup, might all coalesce into potent election messaging for the Republicans.

Soon enough, Trump may announce something akin to former president George W. Bush’s premature proclamations about the Iraq War in 2003 by saying something like this:

“Major combat operations in Iran have ended. The United States and Israel have prevailed. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide.”

If successful, he will secure two more years “like nobody’s ever seen before” of Republican congressional dominance.

Major obstacles

The battle for November will feature a few competing narratives in the U.S. But there are four major hurdles for Trump in particular.

• Information: For voters to be convinced that Trump is a decisive crusader against evil rather than another “forever war” president, right-wing media must sell yet another big lie, mainstream media must continue to pull its punches and the Democrats must continue to flounder.
• Affordability crisis: Trump also has to ensure he doesn’t “win” in Iran while losing on affordability at home. Most American oil comes from the U.S., Canada and Mexico, so the U.S. is protected from global supply disruptions, but global markets push up prices everywhere. Trump’s mere declaration of talks recently brought oil prices down, but only temporarily.
• Allies needed: Because voters will want to see a significant military withdrawal, Trump needs other countries to manage the chaos he’s created. But after disrespecting allies for months, he is struggling to establish a “coalition of the willing” on which to offload the conflict.
• Iranians must co-operate: But because the U.S. and Israel have twice attacked Iran during diplomatic negotiations, Iran needs other stakeholders in the process. Without them, Iran will not be incentivized to stop fighting and nothing will belie an imaginary Trump victory more than ongoing Iranian attacks.

Democracy waning

Whichever scenario prevails, Americans will likely lose. Their complete war costs could include repercussions from the unprecedented illegal bombing of Iran, as well as from unnecessarily turning regional allies into targets.

All of this is tied to what many Americans regard as increasing Israeli aggression, including the killing of 70,000 people in Gaza, which the U.S. has facilitated with funding, political cover and its widely mocked Board of Peace.

America’s democracy, economy and credibility are waning as Trump shamelessly pursues self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment.

“That makes me smart,” he might say, but only a failed leader serves his own interests at the expense of his country.

John Duncan is affiliated with Science for Peace, a charitable organization dedicated to popular education and research on the intersections of demilitarization, decarbonization and social justice.

– ref. Why Donald Trump will try to declare victory in Iran well before November – https://theconversation.com/why-donald-trump-will-try-to-declare-victory-in-iran-well-before-november-279059