Chalcids to the Rescue!
I’m sure that many of you around the world are as big a fan as we are of David Attenborough here in England, and we hope that the new series of Planet Earth is reaching you where you are as well. (If not, we do encourage you to buy the DVD the second it comes out!)
If you watched the first episode, then you will have learned of the plight of the red crabs native to Christmas Island, and how they are being decimated by an invasive species of ant.
Well, we’re pleased to tell you that this marvelous creature in the image below is coming to the rescue!
Tachardiaephagus somervilli (Mahdihassan, 1923) – Specimen of the species to be released on Xmas island for biological control of invasive yellow crazy ants.
Have you heard the one about the wasp that kills the bug that feeds the ants that kill the crabs that keep the forests healthy on Christmas Island?
If not, that’s because it hasn’t happened yet, but it is a tale worth telling.
In the coming weeks, Parks Australia will release a 2mm wasp on Christmas Island to control the island’s yellow crazy ant infestation. Crazy ants are a big threat to the island’s wildlife, including its famous red crabs.
Biological control – when we use one species to control another – is infamous for giving Australia its cane toad invasion. So, how do we know this one will work?
Read more about how A Tiny Wasp Could Save Christmas Island’s Spectacular Red Crabs from Crazy Ants.
Here on Notes from Nature, we have an entire collection of these marvelous microscopic parasitoid wasps – containing much valuable information for researchers around the world, with many more potential ‘biological control’ applications yet to be uncovered.
Help us set that information free, in our Magnified expedition: The Killer Within: Wasps, but not as you know them.
Challenges, finishing, about NFN, and stats – a late year bloghodgepodge
A couple weeks ago, we asked our Notes from Nature citizen scientists for help completing 5 near-done expeditions. As of last week, we completed this challenge, and we want to thank all the efforts by some dedicated folks to get us there. We learned a lot with this challenge — the biggest lesson being that people really enjoyed tackling a challenge. We also know now to give folks a little more time than 24 hours, especially given that some expeditions still had a fair number of transcriptions to do (and took longest to finish). We hope to find some ways to make “expedition finishers” further rewarded in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!
A couple more quick Notes from Nature updates as we sail into 2017:
- We have new “About” pages! For volunteers, the exciting part is “The Team” page where we list all our researchers and collaborators. We hope to better organize this down the road and link people to the different expeditions, but it’s a start.
- Zooniverse had a small glitch with their stats and we didn’t have any Notes from Nature stats for the time period between Dec. 6th and 10th. Those may be recoverable, but for now you will notice a gap in stats reporting those days.
We appreciate the help, as always, and happy winter holidays to all.
Hot off the Press – Three new species of Parasitoid Wasps
A huge thank-you to everyone who has been helping us transcribe the Parasitoid Wasp “Killer Within” specimen labels, in the ‘Miniature Lives Magnified’ section – they can sometimes be quite tricky, but you are doing work that will aid many future discoveries. This first set of slides is now 84% complete, and it would be awesome to finish those before the end of the year, if anyone is up for a final push!
But in the meantime, we’d like to share some exciting research with you, that Dr Gavin Broad, Principal Curator of Hymenoptera at the Natural History Museum has just co-authored. Together with his collaborator Dr Simon van Noort, Curator of Entomology at Iziko South African Museum, they have identified three new species of parasitoid wasps – two of which were laying undescribed in our own collections!!
All three species belong to the genus Genaemirum, which is found across Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa. The finds bring the total number of species in the genus to eight – and offer more clues to the genus’ biology, which is poorly understood.
Deadly dinner guests
Parasitoid wasps lay their eggs in or on a host animal, eventually killing it when the larvae hatch and eat their host. This lifestyle has seen some parasitoid wasp species used as pest control, particularly if the hosts cause destruction to economically important crops.
Their fatal effect on the host also distinguishes parasitoids from parasites, which live off a host but don’t usually kill them.
‘Until now, we knew almost nothing about the biology of Genaemirum species,’ says Dr Gavin Broad, Principal Curator of Hymenoptera at the Museum, and a co-author of the research. ‘They were first described in 1936, but since then we’ve only been able to guess at the hosts that they parasitise.’
However, one of these three new species, G. phagocossorum, was reared from a log infested by the cossid moth Coryphodema tristis.
‘This suggests that members of the Genaemirum genus live on wood-boring moths – something that was suggested, but never confirmed, as long ago as 1967,’ says Dr Broad.
‘It’s exciting to think that these specimens could finally help us answer that 80-year-old question.’
Warthog wasp
It’s not just the mystery of its host species that has made Genaemirum an interesting genus to study.
‘They have the most extraordinary head structures,’ says Dr Broad. ‘Gerd Heinrich, who originally described the genus, characterised them as “monstrous”.
‘In fact, one of the species we found in the Museum’s collections has the most extreme head I’ve ever seen.
‘It has massively expanded genae, or “cheeks”, a long lower face and horns above the antennae. We named it G. phacochoerus, after the genus name for the warthog, because of its striking appearance.’
Still digging
This unusual head shape lends weight to the suggestion that the genus parasitises wood borers, according to Dr Broad.
‘It looks like the female’s head has developed into a shovel shape,’ he explains. ‘This could help her shovel her way through piles of frass – the waste produced by the moth larvae as they bore through the wood – to get to a host for her eggs.’
The hunt for answers isn’t finished yet, however. The research, a collaboration with Dr Simon van Noort, Curator of Entomology at Iziko South African Museum, is part of ongoing efforts to document African parasitoid wasps in the family Ichneumonidae.
‘If we had a male G. phacochoerus specimen to compare to the female, that would tell us even more,’ says Dr Broad. ‘The shape of its head could support or refute the wood-borer host theory, since males don’t need to access a host.’
‘But for now, we’re one step closer to understanding these strange species.’
Read the full news story on the Natural History Museum website: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/science-news/2016/december/monstrous-wasps-could-reveal-their-species-secrets.html
Second Swallowtail Butterfly Expedition Complete!
A big thank you is owed to all the citizen scientists who contributed to the just-completed transcription of swallowtail butterfly specimens from the Field Museum of Natural History! This expedition fills in some much-needed taxonomic gaps that remained after the previous expedition, and helps push the swallowtail project forward. Despite the American Thanksgiving weekend, we still managed to get 121 specimens transcribed in 10 days. Way to go!
We have another big push to digitize swallowtail specimens from the eastern United States coming up before the next round of holidays. If you need a break from the festivities, be sure to check back for more butterflies!
Finishers needed for a NFN challenge
Hi everyone, we are just about finished with 5 expeditions and we wanted to see if we could make a big push to get these done! The total number of transcriptions needed varies from 8 needed to 321. So, the challenge is: Can we get these 5 expeditions done in the next 24 hours? Let’s find out! You’ll find the expedition names and number needed below. Just hit the link to start transcribing. And thanks for being a finisher!
Herbarium_Arkansas Dendrology: Part 6: White Oaks – 8 more transcriptions to do
Butterfly_New World Swallowtail Butterflies from the Field Museum of Natural History – 24 more transcriptions needed
Herbarium_WeDigFLPlants’ Sunflowers of Florida—Florida’s Biggest Plant Family – 129 transcriptions left
Herbarium_Plants of Texas: milkweeds and spurges and birches, oh my! – 182 transcriptions to go
Herbarium_Arkansas Dendrology: Part 5: Blackberries, cherries, hawthorns, buckthorns, elms, hackberries, and mulberries — 24 October 2016 – 321 transcriptions still to do
New World Swallowtail Butterflies from the Field Museum of Natural History
The New World Swallowtail Butterfly project has a new expedition up! As you may remember, I am collecting images of swallowtail butterfly specimens to understand how morphological diversity varies across the New World. Museum specimens provide an excellent record of diversity through time and across geography, and the new expedition is no exception.
These butterflies were imaged during my recent trip to the Field Museum of Natural History. The Field Museum Division of Insects houses over 12 million specimens; their Butterfly and Moth collection has a geographic and taxonomic breadth that complements the previous expedition nicely. In addition to helping with my research, the data you transcribe will be sent back to the Field Museum to incorporate into their specimen database for other researchers to use in the future.
As with the previous Swallowtail expedition, remember that there are two images for each specimen—a front and a back. This is important, because in some cases, the labels in the image have different data written on each side. Thanks for your help, and look closely—some of these specimens provide a unique historical record of biodiversity that has since been lost!
Hannah L. Owens, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Associate, Florida Museum of Natural History
Plants have all the anthers!
A new expedition has been launched on Notes from Nature from the herbarium at Appalachian State University. This expedition contains everyone’s favorite families: Asteraceae and Asclepiadaceae! Look for the title Plants have all the anthers (Pt1) to start transcribing this wonderful collection. As you can tell by the (Pt 1) part of the title that there is more to come. Stay tuned on our herbarium Facebook page and Twitter to see when the next segment of this lovely herbarium is released!
WeDigBio 2016
Many thanks to all the participated in WeDigBio 2016. We had a suite of successful onsite events as well as lots of volunteers contributing remotely.
NFN had as many as 23 expeditions active during the event with over 11,000 transcriptions completed over the four-day event! There were NFN events held from Bangalore, India to London, U.K and several across the United States.
WeDigBio event at the FRLHT Trans-disciplinary University
We had several very productive onsite events with volunteers contributing as many 500 transcriptions in a single day. However the most productive event by far was hosted by Travis Marsico in Arkansas U.S. with over 1300 transcriptions in a single day!
As I reminder there is lots of information always available on our Statistics page if you want to explore around. You can also review some of the conversations that went on by searching for #WeDigBio
Best,
The Notes From Nature Team
Trechine Beetles complete and more Tiger Beetles
Whoops, I made an error: there are in fact only about 1250 species of Bembidion, not over 3000 as indicated in the Trechine Ground Beetle Expedition description. My apologies to all those that noticed! Much thanks to James Bergdahl for bringing it to my attention.
In any case, thanks again to everyone that has contributed to the E.H. Strickland Entomological Museum (University of Alberta Museums) ground beetle expeditions. With the completion of these 1180 specimens, our list of transcribed specimens now totals 2278 records. Only 17,839 more to go!
For our next expedition we will return to tiger beetles. Yep, that’s right, more tiger beetles! Apparently, in the scramble to get new images prepared last time around, I overlooked 1141 records.
Check out the new expedition “Tiger Beetles 3”!
Cheers,
— Bryan Brunet, PhD
Collections Management Advisor (Natural Sciences), University of Alberta Museums, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
WeDigBio 10K
The Notes from Nature team — all of us — have been amazed by the efforts of our volunteers during the annual WeDigBio transcription blitz. We are in the waning hours, here, as the event winds down at midnight tonight.
Right now, since WeDigBio started Sunday, we have had 9488 transcriptions completed. A HUGE effort! We are hoping to make a last push to 10K before its over, and so if you have a little more to spare to get us over the hump, we’d be excited to make that mark.
We’ll post a longer summary of all the great WeDigBio events etc. during the week, after we’ve had a chance to digest them ourselves.
Thanks, again.
Your Notes from Nature Team
Notes from Nature 