The fungus among us

In the last post I made a bold prediction: that the weather would warm up and the insects would become extra active (especially coming to the porch lights at night).  Well, I'm an Entomologist - not a Meteorologist - so what happened was we had a string of days where the mornings were overcast with showers, then in the afternoon it got hot and humid, but it would stay cool in the evening.  This is not the right recipe for insect activity, BUT it is the recipe for fungus.

Most people are familiar with the conspicuous fruiting body of mushrooms, but aside from this brief period in it's life cycle, a fungus is composed of a network of hair-like filamentous hyphae.  These hyphae grow through soil, dead trees, and other places that aren't typically exposed for us to see.  The fungus hyphae slowly feed on the nutrients of the dead tree and grow.  Now because the fungus hyphae grows best in dark, damp, warm places, this is something that a lot of people can overlook.  However, this isn't something overlooked by invertebrates!



(We are all familiar with the fruiting bodies of mushrooms like the ones above, but have a look at the fungus hyphae in these pics below)

We are all familiar with "Pill-Bugs", but after my childhood fascination faded I never paid much thought to them.  It turns out that they play the important role of decomposing dead wood.  I have too many brush piles to speak of, and these "Pill-Bugs" are feasting on the wood and fungus hyphae growing on the wood.  As the "Pill-Bugs" eat the wood they are mechanically grinding up the wood and digesting it into finer particles.  This breaks down the wood, which will eventually turn into soil.

I use quotations around "Pill-Bug" because it is not a "Bug"; it is a land crustacean!  It is still an invertebrate, but it is an isopod, which is more closely related to crabs, shrimp, and crayfish than it is to any insect.

Well, the short part of this story is that I went out looking for insect activity, I didn't find what I was looking for, but I did find a lot of fungus and isopods hitting the high point of their year from how the local weather has given them just the right conditions to thrive.

Have a good day!
Andy

Nature watch

Here in Norman, we have had the perfect weather bring out all the summer bugs!  If you haven't noticed already, ticks are beyond abundant this year.  Be sure to check yourself and your pets after every time you leave a tall grass or wooded area.  Double check your pets too!  My dog Ginger has been treated to prevent ticks, but she still carries them into the house (and they end up on me!).  I've noticed a lot of rabbits in my back yard, which means that the ticks have plenty to feed on.  I expect the ticks to thrive under these conditions.

All the moisture and humidity we have had the last few days is the perfect weather for insects to get busy with their life cycle.  All we need is a bit of sustained heat, which I expect will come in a few days, and we ought to be seeing quite a lot of activity.  You might have already noticed that insects are starting to be attracted to the lights on your porch, but expect this activity to increase over the next few days as it warms up.  It's simple to prevent these bugs from getting in - just turn off your porch light - OR you can leave it on and watch what comes to visit!  I like to leave mine on and I have been seeing some interesting longhorned beetles, moths, stinkbugs, and planthoppers.  What happens is that these insects normally use the moon as a navigation point while they move about at night.  Once they get close enough to the porch light, it appears brighter than the moon, and this disorients their navigation.  This is generally why you see June Bugs awkwardly flying about a light and banging into just about everything!

I just bought a house with a bit of land, and I'm leaving a few acres to grow into tall grass and wild flowers.  Right now the tallest plant is a thistle - these are common weeds in Ohio and everyone works to eradicate these on sight (think about that plant with stickers that got you when you ran around barefoot as a kid).  This thistle turns out to grow some really spectacular flowers, and these flowers attract a variety of pollinators.  I took a close look at the action on this plant and I was shocked by what I found - I saw something with the body of a beetle, but the mouthparts of a true bug!  I couldn't believe my eyes as I watched this beetle use its specialized mouthparts to drink nectar as if it were using a straw.

Here is a picture of the flower with the beetle on it:

Here is a picture of the beetle's mouthparts:

Here is a picture where I manipulated the mouthparts in order to show you its length:

 

For the most part, beetles have chewing mouthparts and True bugs have a straw-like stylet to pierce plant or animal tissue and then sip the fluids.  This beetle still has chewing mouthparts but has modified maxillae.  Maxillae normally work like your cheeks do to keep food in your mouth and to move food around within your mouth.  This beetle has two elongate maxillae that come together as a pair, and they reach 9mm in length!  The whole insect is about 15mm, so this mouthpart is over half the length of the entire body!  Imagine if your cheeks stretched out to over half your height!  Mine would be almost 3 feet long!  These long, specialized mouthparts certainly helps this beetle reach the nectar hidden deep within the flowers!  

Well, next time you see a blooming thistle, take a careful look to see if this beetle is nearby.  Also, now is a great time to experience wildlife in general, so be sure to spend some time outside!  Here is a picture of a turtle my dog Ginger found going through my back yard:

Just before we found the turtle, this bunny let me get close enough for a good photo:

 All the best!

-Andy

What has been going on?

We have been very busy lately and I want to catch you all upon all the things we have been getting into.  First, I have been working hard to build up our volunteer base.  When I started we had one volunteer, and now we have 4 volunteers with two more getting ready to start.  I've trained a great core set of volunteers who are chipping away at our backlog of biodiversity samples.  We started with a shelf that had nearly 500 samples, and today there are only 12 or so left!  They are doing a fantastic job and I can't be more proud of how well they have taken to this project.  I'm working hard to make sure we have plenty to keep them busy once we move on to our next project!

No more jars like this!

Next, Katrina and I have both organized separate symposia for the national meeting of the Entomological Society of America.  Katrina's symposium will cover aspects of True Bug (Hemiptera) biology and my symposium will cover processing samples of biodiversity.  I'm hoping to use our set-up as a model for small departments to efficiently take on big tasks.  We estimated that the 500 samples would take about two years to process, and after 6 months we are half way to completing this!  I put all the credit to the dedication of our volunteers and I want to share our workflow so that other institutions can model after what we do.  

Katrina has been working hard to examine the sensory structures on insect antennae.  Of particular interest are the sensory structures she described in the previous blog post.  She has taken the antennae, embedded it into a resin, and then cut ultra thin sections so that she can examine the cellular structure of these sensory structures.  Hopefully the results will provide evidence for the functional purpose of these specialized antennae structures!

We are constantly working to find funding to improve our facilities and expand our projects.  With some luck, we hope to acquire the funding to upgrade our specimen storage cabinets.  Our existing cabinets are very old and not holding up well.  Also, we are starting to struggle to find space for the specimens that our volunteers are processing.  If we are lucky enough to receive funding for this, then we will be set to really take off on future projects.  We are also looking into a project where we will begin to collect baseline data for an Oklahoma butterfly that is listed as "Vulnerable" to extinction.  I can't wait for what the next 6 months will bring!  

Finally, we need to mention that the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History has won the 2014 National Medal for Museum and Library Service.  The award was present to the Director, Dr. Mares, by the First Lady, Michelle Obama.  Our talented, in-house, fabrication department did a great mock-up for our celebration event last Sunday (See pic below!).

Well, we have plenty more coming up and I'll be sure to keep updates more regular!
All the best!

Andy