December 16th, 2014

When students first arrive at the centre as part of their Biodiversity unit, I often tell them that biodiversity is one of my favourite topics of all-time. I am so inspired and curious about all of the living things that surround me each day. I am fortunate to be able to explore this with students throughout the school year as part of their learning (and mine too!). Let’s be honest, nobody knows everything about life on our planet, but there are many people now working towards that goal – specifically, the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario (BIO). One of the goals of BIO is to identify every species on our planet AND get the DNA for each. Depending on the scientist you reference, the estimate of the number of species on our planet ranges from 20 million to 100 million. To date, BIO has catalogued 400 000 of them!

When I found out about this project I got on the phone right away and began asking to be a part of it. After waiting a few days, the Camp Heidelberg OEEC site was approved for the School Malaise Trap Program.

For Camp Heidelberg, it meant setting up a Malaise Trap for a two-week period from September 22 – October 3, 2014. This type of trap is a passive way of collecting flying insects using their instinct to crawl up (and towards light) when encountering an object, the same way a fly crawls up the window.

I placed the Malaise Trap at an ecotone, where forest and field meet, where I suspected biodiversity to be highest. I let it sit for the duration, visiting with students twice daily to show them how the trap works and the numbers of specimens collected.

Classes would then use sweep nets to sample invertebrate life in the same field, recognizing differences between individuals caught, and classifying them to Order with the help of a dichotomous key. Classes would see several hundred species per day – we were catching species that fly, jump, crawl, etc. Students are always amazed at the great variety they find when doing this. While classes were actively collecting, the Malaise Trap was passively doing the same.

I just received the analysis of the samples sent to BIO, and I am very excited about the results. Over the 2-week period there were 2792 specimens trapped, of which 166 were distinct species! Sixty-eight of the species caught at the Camp Heidelberg site were not found in any of the other 58 traps from Ontario and the rest of Canada. Of those 68 unique species, 5 were brand new DNA profiles for the BOLD Database of species! The 5 include a Crane Fly, a Braconid wasp, two Chalcid wasps, and a Platygastrid wasp.

There were a couple of notable species from the Camp Heidelberg inventory provided by BIO, beyond the five mentioned above. The text below describes one species that we see all the time, and it is a great one to discuss with students – it looks like caterpillar poop presumably as a predator-avoidance strategy… nobody wants to eat poop! Ewww!

“Warty leaf beetle species are typically very host plant-specific and most species primarily use only a single host plant genus or even a single species to feed and live on. Congratulations to Camp Heidelberg for collecting the only species (Exema canadensis) of warty leaf beetle ever obtained during the School Malaise Trap Program.”

The other record of note was that of the Orange Mint Moth (Pyrausta orphisalis). There were 2 distinct BOLD DNA barcodes for seemingly 1 species. I made a phone call to BIO to ask about this, and they sent me a very detailed journal article about a neotropical skipper. My interpretation of the article is that, even within what is externally viewed as a ‘single species’ of Orange Mint Moth, genetically, there may in fact be 2 species of ‘Orange Mint Moth’. Very interesting…

I am fascinated by all of this practical science that students get to be involved in while at the centre. Hopefully, those students that shared this experience with me at the Camp Heidelberg OEEC, will look back in 20 years and know that they helped contribute to the largest biodiversity study that humans have ever undertaken, and be proud that they contributed to the body of knowledge about our planet. There is so much more to learn…

I have already asked to be a part of the spring program as a continuation : )

Here is the breakdown, to Order, of the invertebrates captured in the Camp Heidelberg OEEC Malaise Trap.