The Entomological Society - keeping the lights on

The Entomological Society, Rembrandt via Gemini AI

I'm troubled by the ongoing demise of traditional wildlife groups, the sort that (used to) meet in a village hall once a month. I observe them gradually blinking out, one by one. I don't have any magic solutions for this (maybe there are none), here I'm just whistling in the dark to console myself and using this as a sketchpad for ideas.

What is keeping local natural history groups alive? Mostly, talks on "I jetted off to an exotic location buring tons of carbon to photograph wildlife". Ironic, isn't it? 

Characteristics of thriving wildlife groups:

• Tend to have an active website or Facebook group, frequently maintained by one or a few individuals. Facebook is probably not the best platform for this, but speaks to the demographic which dominates wildlife groups. Bulletin boards, which might be an obvious alternative, seem to have mostly died, being eaten by Facebook for the elderly, and Discord or WhatsApp groups for the young. 
• Some wildlife groups may have an active website, maintained and driven by an individual who has the time and skills to support this (dangerous, can become fossilized as technology changes, single point of failure). Interestingly I'm not aware of any thriving wildlife group based around an email list or newsletter (which is odd considering the penetration of this technology into the demographic). Maybe I'm missing something?
• Tend to have synchronous face-to-face meetings in addition to online activities. This can be based on geography - local groups, or field meetings, etc, for taxon interest groups.
• And?

But: 

Communities don't live forever, they have lifetimes (particularly since most are maintained by a small number of enthusiasts). Individual members' life circumstances change, so communities evolve (rather than die). This is a tough process for individuals - natural selection - but inevitable. 

So where do we go now? DOBS

• Daylight: Daytime sessions exclude some, but given the demographic, fewer people are active after dark (except for online meetings). 
• Online: works for some, not all. Neither better nor worse than the traditional organizations, but different. 
• Go Big: national societies e.g. BENHS, BAS, etc - not good for carbon footprints.
• Go Small: local face-to-face meetings arranged directly between participants. Accept scheduling problems - everyone is too busy to do everything. Quality of interaction counts, not numbers.
• And?

Please insert your thoughts here: 

Floating frames for macro photography

One of the good things about social media (if you're doing it right) is learning from people who are smarter than you are. A post by Mark Webster on Bluesky put me on to floating frames. Floating frames consist of two layers of transparent flexible film which can be used to trap an object between them and give the illusion that it is floating. They are widely available online (I bought mine from Amazon) in a range of sizes (I bought the 7cm size). Small insects can be trapped within the frame immobilizing them for macro photography. As the film is soft and flexible the insects are unharmed and released after identification. Here is the the result: 

With use the transparent film will mark and the frames will need to be replaced, but so far so good! 

 

 

Kleidocerys privignus

Kleidocerys resedae, the Birch Catkin Bug, is a familiar and very common species of Lygaeid. Two closely related species are more problematic. Kleidocerys ericae was differentiated from K. resedae based on pigmentation and the fact that it feeds on heathers (Erica spp but not Calluna so I'm told). Kleidocerys privignus also has a different pigmentation pattern and feeds on Alder (Alnus). My natural inclination is to be a taxonomic lumper so I'm inclined to disregard the pigmentation differences (intermediate forms occur) and the food plant preferences (which laboratory rearing experiments have shown are not absolute) and regard all three as a single species. My ultimate authority on Hemiptera, Pericart, wasn't sure about these three, and without the benefit of DNA analysis hedged his bets, so no clear answer there. I was able to live with that until recently when I did some DNA analysis which implies that all three are indeed distinct species, see: https://ajcarthropoda.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-kleidocerys-conundrum-resolved.html

Which brings us to the question at the heart of this - what is a species? These days, the answer depends a lot on who you ask, but everyone agrees that it's now a lot more complicated now than when the species concept was developed. I'm afraid I have the old-fashioned opinion (which is bound to upset some) that a species is a group of organisms which are reproductively isolated. There are lots of ways to be reproductively isolated, e.g. pioneers trapped on an island, but it is also possible to be reproductively isolated behaviourally. A good example of this is the wolf spider Pardosa lugubris. This was split into two species based on observations of the male courtship dance (Cryptic species and behavioural isolation in the Pardosa lugubris group (Araneae, Lycosidae), with description of two new species. (2000) Bulletin British Arachnological Society, 11(7), 257-274). Being eaten by the female if she rejects your dance moves is pretty strong selection leading to reproductive isolation. Which brings us to Kleidocerys again. Like many Hemiptera, Kleidocerys communicate by stridulation. In this genus, sound production may not to be associated with mating but occurs when they are disturbed, perhaps as a territorial statement. K. ericae stridulates at a frequency of 16 Hz while K. resedae uses a lower frequency of 8 Hz (Stridulation and its analysis in certain Geocorisae (Hemiptera Heteroptera). (1957) Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 129 (3): 351-358). This is equivalent to the Pardosa mating dance and is likely to cause reproductive isolation, which is borne out by the DNA analysis of the two species. I don't know about stridulation frequency in K. privignus but the DNA analysis means that if we accept K. ericae as a distinct species from K. resedae, we have to do the same for K. privignus. 

Recently I sampled 20 Kleidocerys specimens from Alder here in Leicestershire. My overall impression is that they are quite variable in pigmentation, but in my sample, 1 out of 20 specimens has the pigmentation described for Kleidocerys privignus, the others appearing to be variants of the extremely common Kleidocerys resedae. 

The upshot of all of this is that while it's not clear if K. ericae occurs in VC55 (we have limited heather here), I think it's clear that K. privignus does. Now we need boots on the ground to get out there and figure out the field ecology. 

Many thanks to Jim Flanagan for helpful discussions, and for sharing this interesting paper: 

Davranoglou, L.R., Taylor, G.K., & Mortimer, B. (2023) Sexual selection and predation drive the repeated evolution of stridulation in Heteroptera and other arthropods. Biological Reviews, 98(3), 942-981.

 

Bees Knees - Minding The Gap

It's been a good year for bees so far - the weather has suited them. Last month I found an interesting mining bee in my garden. Leicestershire has fairly good bee records, but they are mostly focussed on bumblebees. The solitary bees (and even more so solitary wasps) are a black hole in recording, particularly when it comes to verification of records. Solitary Hymenoptera in general are a vast and growing skills gap in our knowledge. Partly spurred by curiosity at my find and partly by guilt, I bought a copy of the excellent Falk and Lewington field guide and set off on a quest (Falk, S. (2019) Field guide to the bees of Great Britain and Ireland. Bloomsbury Publishing). 

I wasn't expecting it to be easy, which is good because it's not. This is not an area where casual recorders are ever going to make much impact beyond a handful of species. Nevertheless, I'm enjoying the challenge although I wouldn't have got very far with the field guide alone and without the support of the highly knowledgeable online bee communities. Whether I'll be able to make any sort of impact when it comes to the skills gap it's far too early to say. 

 

Entomology Update - April 2025

April has been a busy month for me, but here are my highlights.

In Praise of Mud

Mud - in January we were drowning in it, but now it's in short supply and that's bad for wildlife.

FIT Counts

The FIT Count season runs from 1st April to 30th September. After starting April with cold northeasterly winds I finally managed to get going. 

Video: Hidden Details - The Magic of Macro Photography

An introduction to macro photography - capturing small subjects at a very close range, often revealing details that are not easily seen. This video is aimed at people interested in starting macro photography and those who would like to improve their photos.

Transformation

My favourite wood has been transformed. 

AI is coming of age - as this potentially useful tool demonstrates

You don't have to like AI but you do have to live with it - it's not going away. So while we wait for the singularity, let's make it useful.

Springtails on NBN

Thanks to the hard work of James McCulloch & Duerden Cormack, more than 6,000 springtail records have been imported from iRecord and are now available on the NBN Atlas. 

Read previous updates

Latest photos

AI is coming of age - as this potentially useful tool demonstrates

You don't have to like AI but you do have to live with it - it's not going away. So while we wait for the singularity, let's make it useful.

I've been playing with Google's NotebookLM, a tool which collates, summarizes and analyzes sources provided, helping users quickly grasp key points and easily access answers to questions. While it carries the warning "NotebookLM can be inaccurate; please double check its responses", one of the best aspects is that it links statements it makes to original sources so that they can be checked (AI coming of age). It can assist in brainstorming and generating ideas (through question prompts), making it a very useful tool in my limited experience so far.

As a first test, I took a loose collection of notes I have amassed on the Hemipteran family Anthocoridae and stuck them into a notebook. It can be difficult to pull information from these easily so decent summaries would be useful. As an LM (Language Model), visual input/output is non-existent (unless I've missed something), which is a shame as this would enhance the usefulness greatly. Unfortunately, it is not possible to share the whole notebook publicly (though it can be shared with selected users), but I can share some of the outputs it generates, such as this Anthocoridae Study Guide; the result of asking it to "Describe Anthocoris viscii"; and the podcast-style Audio Overview (audio playback takes a while to start, just wait): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DxBFzWq1w5BbfLpZU4oRbHFYWvt5300X/view

Here's another attempt: Leicestershire & Rutland Entomological Society: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YVKOlXTVUnqi6JhF2n0Eb4t5qUSc1L_Q/view

And finally, for Diptera fans: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HodYEFtP_Kau7SWrQaRi7PzAAGCd6bre/view

Obviously it's only as good as the sources provide - Garbage In, Garbage Out - but I'd suggest the best thing you can do is try it for yourself. I'm sure there are more useful things I can do with it than my stumbling attempts so far (and I'd welcome your ideas), but I'm even more sure that it's going to evolve and improve. Welcome to the future. 

Transformation

 

Last night I gave a talk to a local wildlife group which unexpectedly turned into a discussion about insect decline. It had to be said but that doesn't mean I like saying it. If you were in the audience, I apologise again. Seeking solace this morning, I visited my favourite wood. Over the last few years this has been depressing as Ash Dieback has gradually decimated them. Today I discovered that most of the dead Ash has been removed, and the transformation from dank Ash woodland into a very open, light-filled Oak woodland was startling and marvellous. 

 

Hidden Details - The Magic of Macro Photography

An introduction to macro photography - capturing small subjects at a very close range, often revealing details that are not easily seen. This video is aimed at people interested in starting macro photography and those who would like to improve their photos. 

 

Entomology Update - March 2025

A variable month, weather-wise - frost at night but some days very Spring-like. Blossom and buds bursting, but with the cold nights only one moth in the first moth trap of the year. 

In it for the long term

Recovered grasslands need more than 75 years of continuous management to regain their biodiversity.

Knee deep in Malacostraca

Amphipods abound, but are contradictory in unexpected ways. 

Book Recommendations: 

The Naturalists, by Diane Smith 

In the spring of 1898, Alex Bartram, a medical student with a passion for botany, has secured a place on a Smithsonian-sponsored field study to Yellowstone National Park. The only problem is that Alex is a woman, joining an all-male team rather wary of the female of the species.  A great read. 

The History of the Countryside, by Oliver Rackham

I've spent years meaning to read Oliver Rackham's book, published in 1997. Now I have and it remains an eye-opener. I have learned so much. If you've never read this, do yourself a favour. 

Forthcoming talks:

Hidden Details - The Magic of Macro Photography - Monday 07.04.2025, 19:30, online via Zoom

An introduction to macro photography - capturing small subjects at a very close range, often revealing details that are not easily seen. This talk is aimed at people interested in starting macro photography and those who would like to improve their photos. 

Bugs - the little things that run the world - Friday 11.04.2025, 19:30

A talk about finding and photographing Bugs (Hemiptera), their ecological importance and our rapidly changing fauna. From vegans to vampires, integrated pest management to exotic imports, bugs cannot be underestimated yet are widely ignored. LRWT North West Group, Ashby Methodist Church, Burton Road, Ashby-de-la-Zouch LE65 2LF. 

News from Elsewhere...

Tree.fm 

Tune into forests from around the world. Escape & relax.

https://www.tree.fm/

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