The Extended Specimen: What UCONN’s Bee Digitization Efforts with iDigBees are Revealing About Flower Attendance
The University of Connecticut was recently awarded National Science Foundation funds to digitize the bee collection as part of the iDigBees TCN. Within the first year of the project, we have completed digitization of the Apoidea families Megachilidae and Colletidae,including specimens with data of floral attendance. Herein we focus on one such case study of three islands off of Massachusetts: Naushon, Cuttyhunk and the Penikese Islands. The sampling of these small islands included data on endemic plants the bees attended, and therefore can provide data points for ecological studies of pollination in small geographic environments. We present the preliminary data of flower attendance data for native bee species in the Megachilidae and Colletidae in our collection and compare it to the data of the non-native species Apis mellifera for samples from the islands as an example of the potential uses of this dataset for ecologists.
1Florida State Collection of Arthropods, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Plant Industry, Gainesville, FL, U.S.A.
Digitization of Bees at the Florida State Collection of Arthropods
Containing over 20,000 described species, the bees (Hymenoptera: Anthophila) inhabit nearly every terrestrial habitat on the planet. Their role as efficient pollinators makes them ecologically and economically important, and that association with and reliance on angiosperms makes them valuable indicators of environmental change. Museum collections of bees can provide a deep repository of information but can be difficult to access and synthesize since these collections are centralized. The Big Bee project is making these data accessible via the Bee Library, a database of specimen images, occurrence records, and natural history information from US collections to facilitate bee identification and ecological research. The Florida State Collection of Arthropods (FSCA) is part of this effort and houses the largest bee collection in the southeastern U.S. with diverse holdings from Central and South America. Data from FSCA specimens are uploaded to Ecdysis, a Symbiota portal for arthropod collections, and copied to the BeeLibrary and GBIF.
A Century of Illinois Hover Flies (Diptera: Syrphidae): Museum and Citizen Science Data Reveal Recent Range Expansions, Contractions, and Species of Potential Conservation Significance
Hover flies of the family Syrphidae are a highly diverse group of insects that exhibit varied life histories and provide numerous ecosystem services. Despite their importance, they are highly understudied, and many biological and distributional patterns remain unknown in regions like the Midwestern United States. Data from specimens exist in regional insect collections but is largely undigitized and thus inaccessible to much of the scientific community. Here, we report our efforts to identify, recurate,and digitize thousands of specimens from the Illinois Natural History Survey Insect Collection. We then combine these data with existing datasets to compile a comprehensive checklist of Illinois hoverfly fauna, assess for temporal range expansion/contraction trends, and identify species of potential conservation significance. All total, the over20,000 specimens/records we examined revealed 209 species within 71 genera and all 4 subfamilies of Syrphidae to have ever occurred in Illinois. Based on previously published data, 68 of these species are new Illinois state records and 36 expand the previously known range significantly. Numerous species found in Illinois historically have only recently been reported further north, while others of historically Southern distribution appear to be extending their range northward,possibly due to anthropogenic factors like climate change. Furthermore,73 species have not been reported in Illinois since at least 1995, and 27are deemed to be of potential conservation significance with few to no recent records in the Midwest or elsewhere. Our findings illustrate the importance of routine expansion, curation, and digitization of natural history collections.
Jacki whisenant1,2, hailey shanovich, erin hodgson, brian McCornack, & Crystal ly
1University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, U.S.A.; 2Cornell Insect Research Collection, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, U.S.A.
Camp Sketchapod: A New Summer Workshop in Entomological Illustration
John (Jack) Franclemont was a dedicated lepidopterologist, with a long legacy in the Cornell collection. His tens of thousands of immaculate specimens and precise dissections will always be a valuable resource for current and future studies in macro moths and beyond.
Kyle E. Schnepp1 Lily Deeter1, Mayumi A. Needham1, & Gareth S. Powell1
1Florida State Collection of Arthropods, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Plant Industry, Gainesville, FL, U.S.A.
The Impact of Research Associates on the Growth of the Florida State Collection of Arthropods
Natural history collection often lack the support needed to accomplish all of the tasks necessary for the curation, growth, and maintenance of their holdings. The Florida State Collection of Arthropods (FSCA) is no exception. Even with continued support and additions to the staff, many tasks would not be possible without the contributions of our Research Associates. Here, we highlight the impressive contributions of several past and present associates of the FSCA. Namely, 1) the accessions of historic personal collections from individuals like G. H. Nelson, Ed Geisbert, and Jim Wappes; 2) the career-long collaboration with Orthoptera worker, Tom Walker; and 3) the building of the largest odonate collection on the planet through the work of countless associates but especially Minter Westfall and Bill Mauffrey. We summarize the growth of the FSCA through time and the major role research associates have played in that growth, as well as celebrate the curatorial and research accomplishments of these individuals.
Augusto León Montoya Giraldo
Laboratorio de Colecciones Entomológicas Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia
The Flower Flies of the Entomological Coleccion of Universidad de Antioquia-CEUA: Sixteen Years Exploring, Discovering and Describing Colombian Diversity
The Entomological Collection of the Universidad de Antioquia-CEUA in Medellín, Colombia was founded in 1997. Since its beginnings, the Collection has positioned itself as an international reference, harboring more than 1,000,000 specimens in 31 orders in the Insecta, Entognatha and Arachnida. The collection has been mainly focused on exploring and sampling the Tropical Andes “Hotspots” in Colombia, harboring more than 1000 type specimens among holotypes, paratypes and syntypes symbolizing more than 119 described species, of which, 56 species belong to flies (Diptera). One of the better-curated and taxonomically updated dipteran families is flower flies (Syrphidae), which in Colombia is composed of over 435 species in 70 genera, with up to 65% of this national diversity represented in the CEUA. Since 2017, eleven species have been described, two species redescribed and ecological papers published on Syrphid fauna from the Colombian high Andean Forest and Paramo ecosystems, providing invaluable data on biodiversity,distribution and endemism in the country. Within the framework of the project: “Strengthening of Biological Collections” and “Systematization and Digitization of the Entomological Collection Universidad de Antioquia-CEUA (Call 1030-2021, Project Code 88829)” the specimen taxonomy and their associated occurrence data have been compiled through the Darwin Core template. Currently, data from our collection are being made available throughout the National Biodiversity System SIB (Colombia) with echo in the international platform GBIF. Additionally, a friendly and easy-access web platform is being developed with the potential to connect to the main biodiversity repositories, in such a way that these records will be available with photographs of appreciable quality, contributing to increasing knowledge of Colombian diversity and positioning CEUA as an important heritage, each time closer to the public at a global level.
Alfred Daniel Johnson1, Michal Segoli2, Tamir Rozenberg2
1Tennessee State University, Nashville, TN, U.S.A.; 2Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba, Israel
Notes on the Collection of parasitoids Found Within the Nests of Delta dimidiatipenne (Hymenoptera, Vespidae)
Potter wasps (Eumeninae) are the largest vespid wasp subfamily in the world, comprising nearly 3800 species in more than 210 currently described genera. We conducted a search in the Negev desert of Israel for parasitoids that had completed their development but were trapped within the potter wasps Delta dimidiatipenne nests. Our study resulted in a total of 15 parasitoid species, belonging to two orders and eight families of insects. A new association of Miltogramminae (Diptera: Sarcophagidae) with this wasp is also reported. Based on the literature,most of them are probably parasitoids of species that the potter wasps collect as prey, while some are nest parasitoids of the potter wasps themselves. Out of the eight families that were collected, five familes, viz., Sarcophagidae, Tachindae, Torymidae, Eulophidae, and Chrysididae, were most likely to be nest parasitoids, each represented by one species. Based on their known ecology, all the ichneumonids, braconids, and the encyrtid that were documented in this study, i.e., 1024 out of 15 recorded species, are parasitoids of the prey caterpillars brought by the potter wasps to the nests. In this sense, it is perhaps not surprising to find them trapped within potter wasp nests, as they are not likely to have adaptations that enable them to emerge successfully through the hardened mud cell walls. Future research based on host parasitoid rearing can shed more light on factors causing different parasitoid species’ emergence failure, their developmental nutritional requirements, and their ability to break open the nest successfully.
Lisa Rollinson1,2, Allan Cabrero2, & Torsten Dikow2
1Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, U.S.A.; 2Smithsonian Institute, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
Species Discovery in Southern African Bee Flies: A New Species in the Revised Genus Enica
Background: Bee flies (Diptera: Bombyliidae) are a global family of true flies that are ecologically significant pollinators, especially in South Africa. Describing new species and revising taxonomies makes it easier to document bee flies for ecological and human impact studies.However, for the genera Enica and Nomalonia, the last review in 1956 by A. J. Hesse was wordy, comparative, and suggested but did not establish a synonymy of the genera. We used more than 300 specimens that had accumulated in the Iziko South African Museum, KwaZulu Natal Museum, and Smithsonian USNM to revise these two genera of South African bee flies.
Purpose: Enica is a monotypic genus differentiated from Nomalonia (6 named species) only by the presence of two cross veins in the r1 cell and setation below the antennae. Due to similarities in body morphology, in general color pattern, setation, and male terminalia, we established Nomalonia to be a junior synonym of Enica. We redescribed all known 25 species, described a single new species, created a new dichotomous key with photographic references, and provided detailed distribution maps.
Conclusion: The revision of Enica improved species identification for future researchers and increased knowledge of global biodiversity.
Aparna Kalawate
Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata, India
Dung Beetles The Unsung Heroes
About 1300 species reported from India. From Maharashtra around 89 species in 32 genera belonging to 6 subfamilies (Jadhav & Sharma, 2012) reported. Kalawate (2018) reported 50 species represented by 25 genera, in seven subfamilies belonging to Hybosoridae, Geotrupidae and Scarabaeidae from the northern Western Ghats of Maharashtra. Still proper documentation of this group is lacking in India documenting exact diversity of this group from India.
Beulah Garner1,2, Louise Allan1, Robyn Crowther1, Elizabeth Devenish1, Phaedra Kokkini1, Nicola Lowndes1, Laurence Livermore1, Krisztina Lohonya1, Ben Price1, Peter Wing1, & Alfried P. Vogler1,2
1Department of Life Sciences, Insects Division, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK; 2Department of Life Science, Silwood Park, Imperial College London, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK
The Taxonomic Completeness of a Museum Collection Revealed Through Large-Scale Digitisation
Historic museum collections hold a wealth of biodiversity metadata that can be released through large-scale digitisation projects. As digitisation of natural history collections becomes embedded in curatorial practice,novel methods are needed to speed up the digitisation process,especially for the huge collections of insects that contain collecting information on small labels. In this project we piloted semi-automated specimen imaging, and digitisation and transcription of specimen labels for a large research collection of nearly 29,000 pinned insects of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in the subfamily Lebiinae held within the collection of the Natural History Museum London. This work has resulted in research-ready digitised records for 2,734 species,corresponding to 43% of the known species diversity of Lebiinae. The specimen-level data were made publicly available through the NHM’s Data Portal and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) where they accounted for 88% of all occurrences of Lebiinae. The compilation of transcription data revealed the great age of this collection (average specimen age 91.4 years) and the peak time of specimen acquisition between 1880 and 1930, with greatly reduced collection activity in recent decades. Information on geography was available in 91% of identified specimens, but the time of collection was recorded only in 39.8% of specimens. Meaningful transcription information and imaging could be gathered with partially automated camera systems, but also required time-consuming manual curation of species names, collection dates, and authors. The study illustrates the huge value of the large museum collections in terms of taxonomic, geographic, and temporal extent, but modern curation methods are needed to unlock the information content at the required scale.
