Category: Uncategorized

As noted by Dr. Felix Sperling at the ESC blog, there is some discussion about the position of curator of insects at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria. Below is the letter that I have sent to Professor Jack Lohman (CEO) expressing my concern and the importance of ongoing curation and maintenance of the collection for scientific research and public outreach.

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Dear Professor Lohman,

I am writing this brief letter to express my support for continuing to fund a full time curator of insects at the Royal British Columbia Museum. It has come to my attention through a variety of sources that there is some discussion of redirecting the RBCM salary budget for the insect curator position (previously held by Dr. Rob Cannings) to other areas. I believe that this would be an error, both in the short term and in the long run.

My students and I often rely on museum collections in our research. Currently I have students and postdoctoral associates working on aquatic and high elevation insect biodiversity and ecosystem function research in the context of proposed infrastructure projects here in BC. Other work in my lab has been focused on the recent dramatic mountain pine beetle infestation; and now that the infestation has run its course in many areas, the ability to record shifts in biodiversity in regenerating forests in the wake of the beetle is becoming more and more vital.

In order to conduct this type of work – vital to the economic and environmental well-being of our province – we require access to well-curated, well-maintained, and broadly representative insect collections. While collections including some representatives of BC insect fauna exist elsewhere, nothing can replace the RBCM collections that were made in this province over the past many years. The data in the RBCM collection are immense and priceless, and to leave them without a dedicated curator would eventually reduce or remove their value entirely.

One might look to California as an example of the value of comprehensive and well-curated regional insect collections. Exemplary collections, such as the Essig Museum of Entomology at the University of California Berkeley, or the collection at the California Academy of Sciences, are prime examples of well-curated collections that have made a huge difference in past and present entomological research in that state. Like California, BC is a biodiversity hotspot. Much of that biodiversity comes in the form of insects and their arthropod kin. If we do not have the tools available to understand past and present biodiversity, we will not be able to react to quite predictable (e.g. development, climate change) or currently unforeseen changes that will affect our health, our food supply, and our environment.

Beyond economic and environmental security aspects, however, is the fact that the public are deeply intrigued by insects. Almost every child who I’ve ever met loves to catch and watch insects. Adults are variably enthralled or wary, but they always want to learn more. Insects are the animals that we encounter most often in our urban environments. They affect our outside activities (ants at a picnic, mosquitoes at the campfire), our health and comfort (West Nile virus, bed bugs), and our food (pollination, helpful and detrimental insects in your vegetable garden). Many are beautiful or exhibit charismatic behaviors. Others are just plain strange and are great fodder for fantastic natural history stories that encourage people to learn more about the world around them.

A dedicated curator of insects is vital for maintenance, documentation, and expansion of the collection and its broad utility. Such a person would be able to develop fantastic displays that attract patrons to your museum. They could develop tools to make the collection more accessible to scientists and the lay public. They would also be a continued invaluable source of information and advice to entomologists and ecologists working on vital basic and applied science in British Columbia. In short, the continuation of this position is vital for science, for outreach, and for our human well-being.

In your vision for the RBCM you state that you intend to “… advance knowledge about BC through our collections, presentations, expertise and partnerships.” Continuing to fund the salary of a curator of insects at the RBCM will go a long way towards meeting this objective. Please strongly consider maintaining this vital position at the RBCM for current and future generations of scientists and citizens.

 

Sincerely yours,

Dezene Huber
Associate Professor
Canada Research Chair in Forest Entomology & Chemical Ecology
Ecosystem Science and Management Program
University of Northern British Columbia

A biodiversity beetle byte. Yum!

Nukes for biodiversity

If we can ignore the Fukushimas and Chernobyls, the uranium mining near the Grand Canyon, (and to be clear we shouldn’t ignore them, just place them in better context, perhaps), nuclear power’s attraction when it comes to minimizing impact on the wilds of the world is fairly obvious. The authors noted that the average person living in a developed nation will use a total amount of energy over his/her lifetime equivalent that stored within one golf-ball-sized lump of uranium. Check out the chart below to see how that measures up to other power sources.

 

Extinction infographic

…Nature pulled together the most reliable available data to provide a graphic status report of life on Earth (see ‘Life under threat’). Among the groups that can be assessed, amphibians stand out as the most imperilled: 41% face the threat of extinction, in part because of devastating epidemics caused by chytrid fungi. Large fractions of mammals and birds face significant threats because of habitat loss and degradation, as well as activities such as hunting.

 

George Monbiot

I remembered that when I read the news that the world has lost 52% of its vertebrate wildlife over the past 40 years. It’s a figure from which I’m still reeling. To love the natural world is to suffer a series of griefs, each compounding the last. It is to be overtaken by disbelief that we could treat it in this fashion. And, in the darkest moments, it is to succumb to helplessness, to the conviction that we will keep eroding our world of wonders until almost nothing of it remains. There is hope – real hope – as I will explain, but at times like this it seems remote.

 

Bees!!

See ten species of American bee in pin-sharp detail and find out how they live.

 

Reviving Wallace’s notes

The illegible text of Wallace’s notebook has at last been revealed using a new hyperspectral imaging system at the British Library. While the human eye only sees a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, which we call visible light, hyperspectral imaging can detect wavelengths invisible to the human eye and convert these into an image that we can see. The technique can reveal hidden detail, such as the traces left by a pencil marking a page. The newly revealed pages of the notebook contain a wealth of information about fish, snakes, birds, bats and many others creatures that Wallace collected.

When I was in early elementary school I would spend afternoons catching grasshoppers on the bluff across the street from our house. I’d bring them back to the house and meticulously color their forewings with a Sharpie. I’d then take them back across the street to the hill and release them in the hopes of recapturing them on one of my next forays. I don’t recall how I got it in my head to do this, and I certainly didn’t know at the time that I could use the data from my mark-recapture experiment to determine population numbers. However, that was moot because I never did recapture a single specimen for all of my trying. I suspect that had to do with population numbers compared to my small marked cohort. Of course I didn’t do the requisite control experiment for the effect of copious amounts of Sharpie ink on grasshopper behavior and survival either. So who knows.

It might be argued that this was my first foray into (solitary) citizen science, of a sort. I was a citizen. I was attempting to do science (without a defined hypothesis). I am pretty sure that if I was a kid today I’d be pretty excited about the many actual citizen science initiatives that are available. Heck, I’m not a kid, but I am excited about them now.

My first actual participation in a citizen science initiative – although I don’t recall that jargon being used back then – was in the late-90s with SETI@home. Very quickly after SETI@home started up I was quick on the draw to install the software on my Bondi blue iMac. The system would download a packet of radio telescope data and then my computer would analyze it for non-random signals. It would send the analysis back to the SETI@home server and download a new packet to work on. The software ran as a screensaver on the iMac. The idea was that people could give up their unused CPUs and, with enough participants, crunch through radio telescope data faster than the fastest supercomputer at the time. I loved the idea of being involved in something bigger, and it made me very geeky about SETI in general. I read a ton of SETI books back then, likely a function of trying to avoid thesis writing. I’m still always game for a discussion about the finer points of the Drake Equation.

If we back up even further, its easy to see that citizen science is even older than that. For instance the Christmas Bird Count goes back over a hundred years. It might be argued that what we call citizen science goes back centuries, if not millennia. But in more recent years with the exponential development of the internet, citizen science has become a much bigger deal. So when Science Borealis asked us to think about the biggest thing in our field over the past year, this was one of the things that came to my mind. Specifically, I am noticing citizen science really maturing and growing exponentially; some evidence of which is the increasing publication of peer reviewed articles stemming from such work. A simple Google Scholar search of “citizen science” limited to 2014 pulls up well north of 2000 entries. And, because of their ubiquitous presence and importance in our lives, insects are often the subjects of this type of work.

This expansion and maturation of citizen science hit me thrice this year. First, I was the academic editor on a cool PeerJ paper that detailed data collection leading to a better understanding of invasive Asian camel crickets in North America. Second, I heard a really cool talk by Dr. Claire Rutledge (Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station) at the Entomological Society of Canada annual meeting about the use of wasps as a biomonitoring tool for emerald ash borer. And third, I heard two separate talks by Dr. Elizabeth Elle (Simon Fraser University) and Dr. Rob McGregor (Douglas College) about the UNIBUG work going on in the Greater Vancouver area.

Several things strike me about these projects, and so many more like them:

• Those involved are highly creative in terms of finding things that people will appreciate and that they will take the time and effort to back up with sweat and time.

• The organizers look for ways that people can contribute right where they are, whether through their computer or out and about in their local environment.

• Never having organized one of these initiatives, I assume that a major challenge is organizing, planning, and ensuring robust data collection so that there can be a credible (published!) end product. In other words, they sure must be a lot of work

• And, most of all, these projects get people to notice the natural world around them and help them to understand the scientific process and the actual rigors of data collection.

That final point is the most important. As scientists we have access to state-of-the-art equipment and analysis platforms. We are able to explore places and concepts that many people will have no opportunity to encounter in their lifetimes. Those of us at research universities have substantial background infrastructure that supports high-level research. When we are stuck in the cliche ivory tower, it can be easy to forget that seeing is believing because we see science working all the time, and we get to discover some really cool things about the natural world.

Not everyone in the public is as privileged as we are, however. So when we get frustrated with the popular discussion on things like climate change, evolution, vaccination, GMOs, or what-have-you, a good part of the responsibility sits on our shoulders. Many people do not have the opportunity or impetus to see and participate in research, so it is no wonder that they misread, misunderstand, or mistrust science and scientists. If we aren’t finding creative ways to get the message out, then we aren’t doing our job. And we shouldn’t expect reciprocal trust or understanding, because we provide nothing to reciprocate.

Engaging the public in scientific discovery, on the other hand, allows them to look deeper. My foray into the SETI literature would never have happened if it were not for SETI@home. I suspect that if, as a grasshopper-Sharpie kid, I had run into some sort of urban insect biodiversity project, I would have been one of the most enthusiastic volunteers that you can imagine.

Engage the public, and they will understand better what we science is all about. I think that 2014 was a big year for citizen science, and I have a feeling that this trend is just going to grow in coming years. And I am happy for that.

Perhaps a good way to end this post is to encourage those who are involved in these sorts of initiatives – either as organizers or participants – to continue on with the exciting work. And, secondly, I’d like to encourage any scientist who is not involved in at least one of these to make a New Year’s resolution to find some time in 2015 to participate and to bring a friend along.

To help with that, here is a list of a few citizen science projects that I’m aware of. Check them out, and send me more examples in the comments or on Twitter (@docdez), and I’ll add to the list. In no particular order:

• Audubon Christmas Bird Count – It’s coming up! Find a count in your area.

• SETI@home – Search for ET on your computer.

• Bumblebee watch – Send in reports and photographs of bumblebees to help with monitoring pollinator populations.

• Migratory Dragonfly Partnership – Dragonfly observations, including Dragonfly Pond Watch.

• eBird – Collect and submit data on birding observations, and explore data from your own area (there’s an app!).

• eButterfly – Sort of like eBird, but with butterflies.

• Notes from Nature – Too cold in the winter for insects or birding? Stay at home and help to digitize museum natural history collections. I personally really enjoy this one (with a nice hot cup of cocoa).

• Zooniverse – All sorts of projects ranging from astronomy to biology to natural history to humanities. Take your pick.

• The Genographic Project – Run by the National Geographic Society, submit your DNA and learn about your own history while adding to a larger database on human migration, etc.

• Feeder Watch – Set up a bird feeder, count the birds that arrive, submit your data. Improve our understanding of bird population trends.

• iNaturalist – Submit your natural history observations, and learn about your area from what others are reporting.

• Stardust@home – Search through micrographs for stardust particles collected by a spacecraft. Find one and potentially get published (and you get to name the particle).

Have fun!

Some biology, some climatology, and some Berlin.

Spiders are amazing!

Over 350 million years, spiders have evolved some impressive skills. Size for size, if spiders were as big as humans, some of these skills could be considered superhuman.

 

Just look a little closer and see what you find

This sort of thing doesn’t happen often. Over the last three decades, this is only the second new new frog species to have been identified in all of mainland US and Canada. The last time anyone turned up a new frog on the US Atlantic coast was in 1955. Even more remarkable that it should have been found in a swamp on Staten Island, so close to the restless streets of Manhattan.

 

Danish wolves

When wolves last roamed wild in Denmark, Napoleon was still terrorising Europe and the Battle of Waterloo had yet to be fought. But now a team of researchers say they have conclusive evidence that wolves have re-established themselves in much of the Jutland peninsula, the part of Denmark that is in mainland Europe, and that at least one male wolf has permanently settled there.

 

The recent IPCC report in plain language

We humans really, truly are responsible for climate change, and ignoring that fact doesn’t make it less true.

 

Speaking of climate, and other changes (interactive)

Investigate how the world around you has changed since you’ve been alive; from the amount the sea has risen, and the tectonic plates have moved, to the number of earthquakes and volcanoes that have erupted. Grasp the impact we’ve had on the planet in your lifetime; from how much fuel and food we’ve used to the species we’ve discovered and endangered.

 

I woke up to this 25 years ago while living in Germany

A human wave of East Germans, a quarter of a million strong according to an official estimate, swept through the Berlin Wall on Saturday to pack the pavements of West Berlin 20-deep with sightseers. Even three new crossing points created during the night could barely cope with the tide of humanity. The once feared East German border guards were brushed aside as the torrent of people swept through on foot, by car and by subway.

 

And today…

Until the early 1930s, West Berlin was the city’s racing heart. Now, it is beating once again. But it has not eclipsed the east — far from it. The whole city is prospering: Unemployment has fallen; the economy is growing faster than in any other German city. Finally, Berliners feel good in their city.