Entomology Journal - December 2023

December was an entomologically-challenging month with exceptionally wet and windy (but mild) weather which limited what I was able to achieve. Here are some points of note.

Chris Raper
I recently chanced across Chris Raper's website (http://chrisraper.org.uk/blog/) where he writes about his varied personal interests, but some of the content overlaps with his professional role at the Natural History Museum. I was particularly interested by his recent article on whether duplicates are a problem in biological recording. His answer is "it's not a problem at all – having more data is always better than less and duplicates are inherent to all biological data", but please read the article for yourself - http://chrisraper.org.uk/blog/biological-recording-dispelling-the-myths/
Also worth reading is his eloquet explanation of "Why we collect insects" - http://chrisraper.org.uk/blog/entomology/maintaining-an-insect-collection/

Common insects are suffering the biggest losses
My intention here is to try to focus on uplifting content, but some bad news is unavoidable. A recent research paper suggests that terrestrial insect decline is being driven by losses among more common species - the species with the most individuals (the highest abundance) are disproportionately decreasing in number. Examples include the Common Froghopoper, Philaenus spumarius. This counters the common narrative about biodiversity loss which focuses on declines of rare species: Disproportionate declines of formerly abundant species underlie insect loss. Nature, December 2023; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06861-4

Our rarest ladybird?
Trevor Pendleton's excellent YouTube channel continues to provide excellent entertainment and instruction. In a recent video he looked (unsuccessfully) for the Striped Ladybird, Myzia oblongoguttata: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTK58LC2Ky8
We only have four records for this species in VC55 - none since 2001. Although the recent weather has not been favourable, let's go and look for this arboreal species in the Scots Pines in 2024. 

My Journal, December 2023

13.xii.2023  Another wet day, not as wet as some but a damp chill. Few birds in the garden but Stumpy the tail-less Dunnock haunts the ground feeder. Worked on spiders from Billa Barra in June.

14.xii.2023  A damp, chill day. Attempted to net winter Craneflies but failed so I ran the moth trap for 2 hours from dusk but caught nothing. 

15.xii.2023  Finally visited Whetstone Cemetery, which was a bit underwhelming, but the adjacent St Peter's churchyard produced a good range of Arthropods from Ivy on mature trees.

16.xii.2023  Worked on the Whetstone samples from yesterday. In the afternoon finished stripping the Robinia trunk and placed it against the base of a fence for a new refugium.

18.xii.2023  Visited Leicester Forest East to check the palatial new LRES meeting venue.  Online meeting with Paul Killip to discus Local Nature Recovery Strategy.

19.xii.2023  Worked on the Whetstone spiders from last week. Not many but they were my first fresh field sample for nearly a month (it's all been about processing the summer backlog recently).

20.xii.2023  Beat Ivy in Attenborough Arboretum. My first records for Derephysia foliacea and Buchananiella continua. 

21xii.2023 Very windy.

22.xii.2023  Winter solstice. A wet one. Emailed out my entomological year in review/winter solstice review. It was still good to look back over what was not a massively memorable recording year but I feel guilty about committing a "round robin" crime. Most recipients seem to like it though. I'm still looking for the opportunity to commit to an entomological newsletter.

23.xii.2023  A short walk in Leicester Botanic Garden. Found a nearly skeletonised Muntjac but didn't investigate for carrion beetles as it was very smelly.

24.xii.2023  Reportedly the warmest Christmas Eve for 20 years, yet bringing in greenery from the garden for Christmas decoration only yielded two species this year, an Erigone and Rhopalus subrufus. In the evening, a green Lacewing appeared on the ceiling. What remarkable insects these are, so delicate in appearance and yet so robust.

26.xii.2023  A rare sunny morning so a walk at Launde. The fields are saturated with standing water in places I have never seen it before, and I have never seen the wood so wet.

27.xii.2023  Another named storm (Gerrit). Another very wet day.

30.xii.2023  Identified a few bugs sent to me before Christmas.  First record of Leiobunum sp. A in VC55 - only a mile from my house. The arrival of this mysterious new species is a rather exciting end to the year: https://www.naturespot.org.uk/species/leiobunum-sp-A

The last bug of the year - Nabis ferus

 

Happy Entomological Christmas

 Winter solstice greetings, with a look back at my entomological 2023. 

DALL·E3/Bing Image Creator

For me 2023 hasn't been a vintage recording year for a number of reasons. After the extreme heat of summer 2022, a cold snap in December and a wet winter, the year got off to a slow start. By the end of January I was desperate enough to try beating Box (Buxus sempervirens), a plant I've never investigated before. Via Anthocoris butleri, this started off a journey through the genus Anthocoris which in some ways has been the highlight of the year, and certainly good for my skills. Writing now at the end of the year we only have one Anthocoris species still missing in VC55, the appropriately seasonal Anthocoris viscii. Mistletoe is now quite plentiful here, but inaccessible high in the trees so I'm hopeful that Santa will bring me that drone with a vacuum sampler attached. 

Spring seemed to drag on and at times I despaired about the general lack of insects. In April, things started to improve, but mostly because I'd done something to help - I bought myself a dip net. Armed with this I started touring VC55 ponds and water courses recording aquatic bugs. This was hugely enjoyable, and working on live aquatic bugs is so much more enjoyable than dead moth trap specimens covered in scales! The only issue I had was one encounter with an elderly dragon who berated me for stealing tadpoles! I narrowly managed to escape being beaten with her rolled up umbrella and she remained utterly sceptical of my excuses about aquatic Homoptera. (Note: net is thoroughly disinfected between each site.)

In May I decided to repeat the trick and bought my first ever sweep net. I'd always been resistant to sweep netting, partly to avoid looking like a Victorian butterfly collector, but I now see the error of my ways. In the field the sweep net was both a blessing and a curse. At the times when I didn't want a lengthy conversation, I could easily sidestep because the usual civilian opener was "Are you looking for Butterflies?" (as in - What else to people catch in nets?), to which I could simply reply "Yes". (I wasn't.) The downside was the aggressive reaction from the off-lead dog plague at all of our nature reserves and SSSIs. Dogs really don't like sweepnets. Neither do dog owners - "You're upsetting him". 

It wasn't until June that things really picked up and on the 30th of June I have a very clear memory of standing in one of the rides at Prior's Coppice that was absolutely alive with insects. What a relief after the famine of spring! Armed with my new net I collected spiders, but mostly focused on Hemiptera, and in particular Mirids. I was looking forward to Carry On Sweep Netting into the autumn and adding to my Auchenorrhyncha records but at this point things started to go awry. In July it started raining and this carried on into August. Good for dip netting, not for sweep nettting. Personal circumstances then got in the way and I wasn't able to do much recording for several months, not even running the moth trap in the garden (bloody builders!). In September I was dragged off on holiday and deliberately didn't do any recording as I was feeling stale and in need of a break. 

Come October things improved and entomological activity started up again. I gave two talks on Mastigusa macrophthalma and while I was spouting my ecological theories about this species I had a lightbulb moment. This resulted in my second most enjoyable field visit of the year (after the relief of Prior's Coppice) - a day spent (successfully) poking around the 800 year Oaks in Bradate Park (first Oak-associated VC55 record for M. macrophthalma in 55 years). 

In November Santa came early and brought me a new camera I could slip in my pocket for macro photos in the field. This revitalized my recording, even though there wasn't much about by this stage of the year and many sites were still too wet to visit. The unexpected cold snap at the end of November and into December put paid to my recording year, apart from a late flourish from the Ivy. Overall, it's been a pretty average year, but I have done some new things and those have been the highlights. 

I don't do new year resolutions but it is good to have some specific targets for the coming year. The main one is to continue with the new collection methods I used this year - dip net, sweep net - and to avoid going to the same sites at the same time of year and collecting samples in the same way. Hopefully the ponds won't dry up in summer so I can continue dip netting into the autumn. The other objective is to run the garden moth trap on a regular basis! In addition, I have a cunning plan based on a remark that Jim Flanagan made in an online talk ... but more of that next year. 

The best thing about 2023 overall has been all the people I have worked with - face to face and online. I hope to be more sociable next year! 

 

Common insect species are suffering the biggest losses

A new research paper suggests that terrestrial insect decline is being driven by losses among locally more common species - the species with the most individuals (the highest abundance) are disproportionately decreasing in number no other species have increased to the high numbers previously seen.  Examples include the Common froghopoper, Philaenus spumarius. This counters the common narrative that biodiversity loss is mostly characterized by declines of rare species. Given the importance of abundant species in ecosystems, their general declines are likely to have broad repercussions for food webs and ecosystem functioning. The authors conclude that:

"Abundant species are often disproportionately important for ecosystem structure, functioning and services, as well as for the diversity and abundance of higher trophic levels, so their declines are likely to have already led to a broad-scale rewiring of ecosystems, and will continue to do so." 

Disproportionate declines of formerly abundant species underlie insect loss. Nature, 2023; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06861-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06861-4

 

Nymphomaniacs - you're doing it wrong

Are you a nymphomaniac? Do you go to ridiculous lengths to identify every bug nymph you find? A new research paper suggests you stop. 

Anthocoris nymph

Soil and leaf litter support a diverse arthropod mesofauna, but their diversity is difficult to study due to the high number of species and specimens, small body size, and limited taxonomic knowledge. Immature stages (larvae) are even harder to identify than adults, as their morphology is largely unknown. Therefore larvae are often ignored, even though they may form a substantial proportion of specimens collected. These authors used DNA barcoding to investigate whether the inclusion of larvae provides a more complete taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity profile in leaf litter beetles. Larvae represented up to 38% of specimens per sample, but most of them belong to 2–3 common species. The authors conclude that immature stages may be omitted in ecological studies of arthropods where both adults and larvae co-occur in the same habitat. Caution is needed when larvae and adults do not inhabit the same environment or strongly differ in biology, or when rare species are omitted.

Can immature stages be ignored in studies of forest leaf litter arthropod diversity? A test using Oxford Nanopore DNA barcoding. Insect Conservation and Diversity. 21 November 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12702