Hello School Malaise Trap Program Participants!
We are happy to say that we have received almost all of your Malaise trap samples for the Spring 2015 program! The rest of the samples are on their way, and we can’t wait to see what you have all collected.
Once your samples arrive at BIO, they go straight to our Collections unit, where they will be sorted by insect Order. As you can see from the pictures below, this can be quite a long and meticulous process.
Hello All,
This week, BIO has been hosting live virtual tours of our BIObus (our field research vehicle). During these tours students have been learning about different insect trapping methods, insect orders, and have had the chance to interact with our expert!
Can you name the insect trapping methods pictured below?
BIO has also been collecting specimens this week. Check out our week 2 bottle below!
Happy Collecting!
Hello All,
We’ve had some lovely weather here in Guelph, ON over the past week and we thought that this would be a good time to set up our Malaise trap here at BIO which we use for spring/summer/fall educational programming!
You can already see that the attached ethanol bottle (see the dark and cloudy areas) has collected a few insects (mostly flies).
However, there are more than just flies out there! Over the weekend, one of our E&O team members spotted a Leaf-footed bug on her balcony.
Reminder: Trap deployment is Monday, April 20th. Now would be a great time to finalize the location of your Malaise Trap. You may also wish to set up your Malaise trap on Friday, April 17th so that come Monday morning, all you will have to do is screw in the week 1 ethanol bottle and make trap observations.
We look forward to seeing what you collect!
Hello All,
School Malaise Trap Program packages are ready and waiting to be shipped today via FedEx! Keep an eye out for your school’s package!
Thank you to all who applied for this Spring’s 2015 version of the School Malaise Trap Program! This year, we received an overwhelming amount of applicants to the program (224 schools) from across Canada. We are thrilled with this response, and as such we hope to be able to increase the Fall 2015 program’s capacity to meet demand. It is because of your continued enthusiasm and support of the program that we have become so successful.
We are pleased to announce the following 64 schools and 6 reference sites have been accepted into the 2015 Spring School Malaise Trap Program. Congratulations to all!
| School | Province |
| École Agnes Davidson Elementary School | AB |
| Evergreen Elementary School | AB |
| J.H. Picard | AB |
| New Horizons School | AB |
| Slave Lake Koinonia Christian School | AB |
| Spruce View School | AB |
| Cameron Elementary School | BC |
| Charles Hays Secondary School | BC |
| Citadel Middle School | BC |
| Clearwater Secondary School | BC |
| Cortes Island School | BC |
| Departure Bay Elementary Eco School | BC |
| George M. Dawson Secondary School | BC |
| Merritt Secondary School | BC |
| Nukko Lake Elementary | BC |
| Queen Charlotte Secondary School | BC |
| Suncrest Elementary | BC |
| West Vancouver Secondary | BC |
| École Précieux-Sang | MB |
| Kleefeld School | MB |
| Landmark Collegiate | MB |
| Shoal Lake School | MB |
| Belleisle Regional High School | NB |
| Florenceville Middle School | NB |
| Petitcodiac Regional School | NB |
| Salisbury Middle School | NB |
| Baccalieu Collegiate | NL |
| Jakeman All Grade | NL |
| Random Island Academy | NL |
| St. Joseph’s All Grade School | NL |
| St. Matthew’s School | NL |
| Berwick and District School | NS |
| Bridgetown Regional High School | NS |
| Chedabucto Education Centre/ Guysborough Academy | NS |
| Evelyn Richardson Memorial Elementary School | NS |
| Northport Consolidated Elementary School | NS |
| Valley Elementary | NS |
| Chesterville Public School | ON |
| Craig Kielburger Secondary School | ON |
| East York Collegiate Institute | ON |
| Gary Allan High School | ON |
| Iona Academy | ON |
| John Polanyi Collegiate Institute | ON |
| Monarch Park Collegiate | ON |
| North Addington Education Centre | ON |
| Notre Dame Catholic School | ON |
| Oakridge Secondary School | ON |
| Russell Public School | ON |
| Scarlett Heights Entrepreneurial Academy | ON |
| Silverheights Public School | ON |
| Smiths Falls Collegiate institute | ON |
| Teeterville Public School | ON |
| Wellington Hall Academy | ON |
| Woburn C I | ON |
| Woburn C I (Eco Club) | ON |
| Zion Heights JHS | ON |
| Miscouche Consolidated School | PEI |
| M.C. Knoll Elementary School | SK |
| St. Peter’s School | Sk |
| Vanscoy School | SK |
| Whitewood School | SK |
| Yellow Grass School | SK |
| J. V. Clark School | YK |
| Jack Hulland Elementary | YK |
| Reference Site | Province |
| Mount Moresby Adventure Camp | BC |
| The Riverwood Conservancy | ON |
| Camp Heildelberg Nature Centre | ON |
| Blair Outdoor and Environmental Education Centre | ON |
| Bluewater Outdoor Education Centre | ON |
| Toronto Botanical Gardens | ON |
Thank you to all who applied and congratulations to our selected participants!
Exploring Insect Identification and Trapping Methods
Date: Wednesday, March 25th/2015 Time: 9:00am-3:00pm
Outdoor educators have always known that insects are amazing classroom study organisms! They are easy to collect and have a fascinating array of life histories. Insects are also important indicators of ecosystem health and are an integral part of every park, schoolyard and habitat surrounding us. Come enhance your knowledge of the world of insects with us at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario (BIO)!
This workshop is specially designed to teach outdoor educators about the Malaise trap, a tent-like apparatus used for the collection of flying insects, as well as insect identification, classification
The Biodiversity Institute of Ontario at the University of Guelph is an institute dedicated to the study of biodiversity, particularly at the species level. BIO is also the birthplace of DNA barcoding, whereby short, standardized gene sequences are used to accelerate species discovery and identification. BIO is home to several world-class biodiversity experts and entomologists who are eager to share their knowledge with you!
Enrollment is limited to 30 participants.
Pre-registration is required
Registration Deadline: Friday, March 13th/2015
Registration fee is $50.00 +HST. (Please make cheques payable to The Biodiversity Institute of Ontario)
Date: Wednesday, March 25th/2015
Time: 9:00am – 3:00pm
*Light breakfast, snack & coffee/tea provided (Please inform us of any dietary restrictions)*
Lunch: Available for purchase on campus
Location:
The Biodiversity institute of Ontario
University of Guelph
50 Stone Rd. East
Guelph, ON. N1G 2W1
Pre-register:
Contact Vanessa Breton
P: 519-824-4120 x 58125
E: bretonv@uoguelph.ca
Bees (Order: Hymenoptera)
Bees, like ants, are actually a specialized form of wasp. They play an important role in pollinating flowering plants. In July 2013 the world’s 20,000th bee species was officially described by a researcher from York University in Toronto. Your Malaise traps collected 6 species of bees and among those were the red-belted bumble bee (Bombus rufocinctus) and the honey bee (Apis mellifera).
The common eastern bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) is the most often encountered bumblebee across much of eastern North America. Unlike honey bees, bumble bees in the genus Bombus form colonies which last only one season. During the winter, mated female bumble bees hide in sheltered places and emerge in the spring to start new colonies in cozy places such as old mouse nests. Once her new home is tidy and her eggs are laid, the queen covers them with wax sheets for protection and incubates the eggs by lying over them for a period of time.
Currently Bombus impatiens is being reared and transported to some areas as a commercial replacement for honey bee pollination. Although introducing this species may be very helpful for the agriculture industry, there are some trade-offs as well. “Managed” pollination programs have introduced this eastern species to western North America, and in some places, such as California and Mexico, Bombus impatiens is now displacing native bee species.
True flies (Order: Diptera)
Chironomidae, commonly known as nonbiting midges, are a family of flies which can be found all over the world. A genus from this family, Limnophyes, was the most common insect during the Fall 2014 School Malaise Trap Program with 1,623 specimens being found in all 59 traps! These midges come from a very large family of insects; experts estimate that there are well over 10,000 different species of Chironomidae world-wide!
Many of these species superficially resemble mosquitoes, but they lack the wing scales and elongated mouthparts which a mosquito uses to feed on blood. The larvae and pupae of nonbiting midges are important food items for fish and other aquatic organisms. Furthermore, chironomids are important indicator organisms, meaning their presence or absence in a body of water can indicate whether pollutants are present or if environmental changes have taken place. This sensitivity to environmental changes also makes chironomids a potential source of information when reconstructing past climate. Lake sediments dating as far back as 10,000 years contain the head capsules shed by chironomid larvae during development. These head capsules allow for species identification and, because chironomid species differ in their tolerances to various environmental factors such as temperature and drought, the identity and abundance of chironomid species present in the sediment indicate the climate at that point in time.
Beetles (Order: Coleoptera)
Beetles are the largest group in the animal kingdom. 25% of all known animal species are beetles. 400,000 species have been described so far and many scientists believe that there are as many as 1 million beetle species on Earth. Beetles have inhabited our planet for more than 300 million years which means they were around even before the dinosaurs.
Among the 211 beetle species caught in the Fall 2014 School Malaise Trap Program were quite a few pest beetle species, especially those of the leaf beetle family (Chrysomelidae), such as the strawberry rootworm (Paria fragariae). Beetles from this family are known to feed on particular fruits and vegetables as you can easily tell from their common name.
It is not uncommon for larvae in several subfamilies of Chrysomelidae to use their own excrement to form protective shields or coverings, but the warty leaf beetle’s larvae in the subfamily Cryptocephalinae take this habit to the extreme. The warty leaf beetle’s eggs hatch underneath a fecal blanket which their mother has provided for them and then the larvae proceed to use their own waste to further develop a case which they continue to add to as they grow. You may think that this practice is unpleasant; however, this casing serves a very important function. Warty leaf beetles are able to avoid observation and detection from predators due to the fact that their specialized casing resembles caterpillar frass (caterpillar poop).
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.
Robber flies, also called assassin flies, belong to the family Asilidae. They are powerfully built and have notoriously aggressive predatory habits. They feed mainly or exclusively on other insects and as a rule they wait in ambush and catch their prey in flight.
These predators can be recognized by their usually bearded face and a concave top of the head between the eyes. Robber flies range in length from 1-5 cm, with the females being larger than males.
The fly attacks its prey by stabbing it with its short, strong proboscis (straw-like mouth part) injecting the victim with saliva containing toxic enzymes which rapidly paralyze it and soon digest the insides; the robber fly then sucks the liquefied material through the proboscis.
You might hear this species before you see it, as it departs its perch with a loud, buzzing flight, quickly landing again nearby, usually on a vertical branch or twig.
Only one species of robber fly was collected during the program at St. Augustine Catholic Elementary School. Congratulations on this interesting find!
