Weekly progress:
We did not sort any more kits last week since we had a backlog of sorted specimens that needed washed and pinned. We are over 13,100 bees pinned and databased. We have also identified over 4,090 bees to at least genus. I spent a lot more time identifying this last week, hence the jump from 3,380 identified bees to 4,090. I need to clear out some more space, so I will be spending more time identifying for the next few weeks, assuming we do not get snowed out. And we did lose one day to snow last week, so I spent that time at home working on the specialist bee guide.
Example box of labelled specimens. These specimens have both collection (location/date/collector) and identification labels.
Another step that I have not mentioned, but key to our progress, is labelling the pinned specimens. Each individual bee must be labelled with their own unique collection label indicating the date/location/collector/specimen number. Both Eleanor and Rahma, our student workers, have been diligently adding labels to the pinned specimens and are over 10,000 specimens with labels. I cannot add identification labels until they have added the collection labels, so their help is greatly appreciated.
Bee Updates:
Ok, so this weeks bee info will not be as in depth as last week. However, I did find a cool plant/bee interaction that I though was worth mentioning. Most plants have small pollen grains that bees will pack into their scopa/corbicula.
A small carpenter bee with milkweed pollinia attached to the leg. This specimen was collected by C. Svoboda.
However, some plants, like orchids and milkweeds, instead create tiny saddlebag like pollen sacs (called pollinia) that have sticky ends to them. Insects trigger a “trap” when they visit the flower, which causes the pollen sacs to get attached to the insect. Then the insect is stuck with these weird little pollen bags until it visits another plant where the sacs hypothetically get stuck and then ripped off. That is not always the case, so sometimes insects are stuck with the pollen sacs for the rest of their life. Some insects also get stuck in the traps and die in the flowers because they cannot get the pollinia off.
A close up of the milkweed pollinia where it is attached to the small carpenter bee.
The cool bee from this week had several pollinia attached, but the pollinia were much smaller than the ones I normally see. They might be orchid pollinia since they are so small, but I am not sure. See images below.
A few of the bees that I was identifying this week had the pollen sacs stuck to their mouths. This male Calliopsis had the most (at least 5), but there was also a female Calliopsis and a Lasioglossum bee that had them attached. This specimen was collected by N. Helm.
This is a close up view of the pollinia stuck to the mouthparts of the Calliopsis. These pollinia are a third of the size of the normal milkweed pollinia.
Name that organism:
No guesses on the mystery organism from last week.
Last chance. Any guesses? Scroll on for the answer!
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The mystery organism from last week was a hairy snail! I do not have a lot of information on why some snails are “hairy”, but there are groups that have hairs like this. Some have these “hairs” when they are younger and lose them as they age. Some species seem to have the hairs their entire life. I
Papers of the week:
Impacts of multiple pollutants on pollinator activity in road verges by Phillips et al.
A cool paper that looks at what might be impacting pollinators along roadways. They looked at wind, heavy metals, noise, and dust as potential factors that might impact bees. The highest impacts were the sections closest to the road (within 2 meters) and wind (called turbulence in their article) was a deterrent.
Read full paper here: https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.13844
See also the twitter summary here where they also show how they performed the various experiments: https://twitter.com/ben_phi11ips/status/1362350616291528704
Example from tweet thread
Measuring turbulence (windy conditions when vehicles pass by) was tricky…
…so we created a ‘pollinator swing-ometer’: a deceased pollinator attached to a piece of cotton hanging from a stick. We measured how much it swung when a car went past. Yes, i know… pic.twitter.com/caHtSTFqpn
— Ben Phillips (@ben_phi11ips) February 18, 2021
I have to say, I was quite entertained by their pollinator “swing o meter” to determine wind turbulence. Anyways, check out the paper and tweet thread above if you want to see more details.
Helping in the lab in the age of Covid:
The lab is open to people interested in helping pin or sort specimens on a very limited basis. For now, the following caveats must be reached. 1) if you have managed to get both doses of a covid vaccine, or 2) you have already gotten covid, recovered, and can show both + then – covid tests. If you fit one of these exceptions and want to come to the lab to help out, please send an email to MaLisa at spring.99@osu.edu
Want to see how to get vaccinated against Covid-19 in Ohio or see if you qualify yet? See the vaccine distribution website here: https://vaccine.coronavirus.ohio.gov/
Events:
Saturday, February 27th, 9am – 3 pm: Ohio Natural History Conference (online and free!): Theme: Biodiversity & Technology: The Future of Natural History. Topics covered include telemetry, drones, and motion sensor cameras to document wildlife.
Register here: http://www.ohiobiologicalsurvey.org/
Friday, March 5th, 10 am – 12 pm: 2021 Ohio Wildlife Diversity Conference (online and free!):
Birds, millipedes, and snails! The talk lineup sounds like an eclectic mix of fun presentations and they are revealing two new ODNR booklets! Register here: https://ohiodnr.gov/wps/portal/gov/odnr/home/additional-resources/division-of-wildlife/2021-ohio-wildlife-diversity-conference-registration
Best wishes,
MaLisa
You stumped me with the hairy snail. But I did notice in the photo a small arthropod, apparently dead, stuck to the surface at the left. It looks a bit like either a springtail (Collembola) or perhaps a psocid (Psocoptera). Any thoughts about that?
Haha, yea. I debated on cropping it out. I believe it is a very sad and very squished globular springtail. The snail has some thrips stuck to the top of it too.
MaLisa,
Thanks for your diligence in posting weekly. I always find it fascinating.
🙏🏽✨
Glad you like them!
Hi MaLisa! Great post on the pollinia. That’s so interesting about the tiny pollinia on the Calliopsis. I have to admit I was stumped on the mystery organism last week. Never thought about a snail! Dan Dourson in his snail books (Not sure if you’re familiar with them but they’re excellent. He does his own publishing so you have to email him directly to purchase) talks about hairy snails and that the hairs collect debris which is used to help camouflage the snail. He has some great photos in his books.
Here’s his amazon author page:
https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3ADaniel+C.+Dourson&s=relevancerank&text=Daniel+C.+Dourson&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1
Wow, those are really cool! Seems like there are not a lot of copies of the books.
I know the ODNR is coming out with a new snail guide, but I am not sure if it will include terrestrial snails. Probably not.
Hi MaLisa: I certainly enjoy all the weekly updates and the cool looking and sometimes strange specimens. Thank you to you and your helpers for all the detailed, tedious work that you put into this. Bet you have “buggy” dreams. lol
Thanks! I am glad you like the posts. I do occasionally have buggy dreams, but normally about living specimens.
Also, I must have missed this before, but is your maiden name Spring?
Hi MaLisa, thank you for the paper on “Honey bee hives decrease wild bee abundance, species richness….” Interesting paper. I’ve incorporated it into a talk I’m giving for the Portage (County, OH) Park District, stressing the importance of wild bees as essential pollinators.
Cool, glad you found the paper useful!
On the hairy snail, is that a spring tail in the left lower corner?
Yea, I believe the organism on the lower left of the snail image is a very squished globular springtail
As a retired entomologist, I am totally impressed and heartened by this project. I cannot thick of any survey EVER that got so much attention and involved so many amateurs in an academic taxonomic study. You deserve a Nobel Prize.
Haha, thanks! Though I don’t think there is a category for entomology themed Nobel Prizes. There are also a lot of other big community science project that do incorporate a lot of people, so there would be a lot of competition for said prize.