Hello BIO! We were late on yesterday’s blog but this is a catch up. The catch volume so far this week is at about 2 it’s going at about the same pace as last weeks catch volume. Today is a very wet day so that hopefully will bring in a new species of insect! We will update you tomorrow on how it is going.
This blog was written by Daniel & Liam
As the experiment has progressed over this first week the results have been disappointing. The first week bottle was removed and much to the participants surprise there was an incredible lack of biodiversity. This lack of a large sample size is extremely surprising because of the amount of plant matter in the courtyard. The trap was assessed on the second day to make sure any issues that may affect the experiment were taken care of. Spider webs were cleared off the bottle but even after that was taken care of the results were still lacking.
Though the lack of a large sample size is surprising an experiment conducted last year heeded some of the same results. Students made Sticky Traps last year to examine biodiversity in the courtyard and they too were surprised by the underwhelming numbers. They were especially surprised because a school nearby had great results.
This lack of biodiversity does make sense in comparison to the other high school because of a few reasons. For one thing the neighbouring school backs on to a river where Richview does not. Also Richview is situated by the intersection of two major streets where the other school is only bordered by one street. Since Richview is only one kilometre away from a golf course, the chemicals used to maintain those grounds may be affecting the biodiversity at the school.
This lack of biodiversity is concerning and should be continually monitored in the future.
Good afternoon,
St. Ignatius of Loyola in Guelph collected 10-15 insects on Monday. Some new additions include: small fruit flies, and a black-and-white beetle. Several black flies were caught again. We are looking forward to see what the week will bring in terms of collection with this damp weather. Take a look inside!
Well, here it is week 2 and we are off to a less than auspicious start…a cranefly as of this morning. But of course, the weather is also less than stellar, cold wet and drizzly. The insects aren’t the only ones who want to stay sheltered in this weather…everybody wanted to get back into the school as quickly as possible.
ESA Malaise Program Team Leaders Alex and Isabel send greetings from ESA to all other participants and supporters of the program!
Tuesday September 30th
Hey all you biologists out there! We are the Monsignor Doyle Mustangs in Cambridge, Ontario and our program has been going well! We have had wonderful weather (about 24 everyday and sunshine) and our catch volume has been good. We wish we had better plant diversity in our school yard, however that is out of our control.
Brantford Collegiate Institute’s grade 9 science class’ #SMTPselfie! Great picture!
We saw a wasp on Monday, September 22, when we first went there, but the bottle wasn’t in the Malaise Trap yet. Then, on Friday when we had the bottle on, we caught some insects like a wasp and lots of flies.
We love the program and this Malaise Trap Program is fun because we are learning about insects. Flying insects go in the trap then die. We caught lots of them last week and we might catch more insects this week.
We put our Malaise trap up on Monday, September 22. The insects will fly right up to the top of the trap and there is a hole at the top and the bottle is attached to the hole.
There is ethanol in this bottle so the insects get trapped in the bottle and die.
On Friday, September 26, we took it down to see how many insects we have caught.
The ethanol in the bottle, believe it or not, actually changed colours!!! It was sort of a brownish colour instead of being clear. Most of the bugs were dead at the bottom of the bottle along with some floating insects. The floating insects looked like they were swimming. I think it’s because they just got in the bottle over night so they are probably just making their way down.
Today, September 29, we went back to the location where we have set up the Malaise Trap. Because the cloud coverage was only about 3%, I thought we wouldn’t catch many bugs. Usually there are insects flying in my face every day. But today there were no insects in the air. That’s why I predicted we wouldn’t catch lots of insects today! We found 2 ladybugs around the tent though, so maybe we will catch some crawling critters, such as: ladybugs, spiders, or maybe even beetles. Because those bugs can crawl up the net right into the bottle, as they look for shelter when the weather is rainy.
On September 22 our grade five class took a five minute walk from Evergreen Elementary School to our science teacher’s yard to attach the ethanol to the trap.
The trap was bigger than I thought.
We use ethanol to preserve the insects. It is important how we handle it because ethanol is very dangerous, poisonous and flammable. If we didn’t use ethanol the insects would naturally dissolve or decompose, and the research biologists wouldn’t be able to take a good enough tissue sample.
We were the first class to attach it. Because of that there were no insects. Yet there was one that had found it’s way into the top bottle.
I think it is a very clever program. I find it very intriguing and interesting, especially because the DNA barcodes can be used to prevent fish fraud!
