Field Work and Collections
Hi everyone! I wanted to write a bit about the field work portion of this project, and why collections are important.
Let's first talk about field work, and why it's so integral to this project! First, some background. I've been doing this sort of field work for about 12 years now! If you watched the project video, you saw some glimpses of what that looks like. Essentially, I go into different types of habitat with a generator, a white sheet, and bright lights, setting them up, and seeing what types of insects come to the light.
This method is extremely effective for attracting adult moths, as you can see above. Once these individuals come into the sheet, I photograph them, and sex them. If they are female, I place them into a screen cage for egg laying, and if they're male, I collect them as specimens. This does a few things: it gets me lots of material for DNA barcoding, and it also gives me extremely accurate abundance data. The females that are caged are placed into a larger flight cage with a potted hostplant and artificial nectar solution (or a flowering plant) so that they can lay their eggs. I raise these caterpillars safely in my lab, away from predators and parasitoids, and photograph every stage of growth to document the entire lifecycle. Caterpillars go through 5 different instars, and each instar is a bit different in appearance, usually just due to size, but often also because of coloration.
For this project, I've already done two years of collections! This means I have about 150 specimens of this species complex, ready to use in DNA barcoding. All of these specimens are stored with a date of capture, an exact location of capture, and an ID tag that references a database I keep.
The data associated with each specimen is vital, as without it, the specimen lacks a lot of value. For this project, every specimen that I barcode will be geotagged, and allow me to create really detailed maps of where each species is found. Without that information, I wouldn't be able to do this project!
I wanted to touch on the ethics of collecting insects. A lot of people hear about collecting insects and equate it to the decline of insects. It's important to separate these issues. Insect collecting, when done properly, is essential to the study of Entomology. Proper insect collecting involves abiding by laws and regulations (Federal, State, Local, etc.), keeping data with specimens (date and location), and careful storage of specimens to prevent damage. Insect populations are on the decline, that is extremely evident, but of all the research that's been done, nothing has implicated insect collecting (Wagner et al., 2021). It is really important, for the betterment of science and conservation, that we don't demonize insect collecting, and instead view it as a necessary way to document, record, and save insects.
Every specimen that I collect plays an important role in understanding key differences between two similar species, and will ultimately serve to determine the conservation needs of each. While it may be upsetting to think about collecting insects, know that for each one that is collected, there are dozens more than aren't, and that collecting alone cannot destroy a population of insects. Using collections as a basis for conservation has been done before. In fact, a huge study showed that many species of Sphingidae are declining in the Northeastern USA and this study used museum and private collection records to show it (Young et al., 2017). In order to save insects, we have to learn about them to the fullest extent possible, and to that end, collecting is necessary.
Thank you for reading! If you're interested in helping my project, please back it, and share this with your friends. This work is not possible without your help!
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