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Canadian amber reveals bizarre ants from the Cretaceous – Editor’s Pick for TCE 145(4)

By Dr. Chris Buddle, McGill University & Editor of The Canadian Entomologist

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It’s with great pleasure that I announce my pick for the latest issue of The Canadian Entomologist.  Ryan McKellar and colleagues wrote a paper on a new trap-jawed ant from Canadian late Cretaceous amber (freely available during September).  As they write in the Abstract, the new species “….expands the distribution of the bizarre, exclusively Cretaceous, trap-jawed Haidomyrmecini beyond their previous records…”. They truly are bizarre! Facial structures right out of a sci-fi movie!  When reading the paper, I was also surprised that the fossil record for the Formicidae is sparse during the Cretaceous.

Haidoterminus cippus. Figure 1 from McKellar et al. 2013

I asked the lead author a few questions about this work, and am pleased to share the responses with you. It’s truly exciting research, and I am thrilled that the pages of TCE include systematics from amber. This work stirs the imagination, and takes us all back in time.

What inspired this work?

My interest in the Canadian amber assemblage really began when Brian Chatterton (then my M.Sc. supervisor) showed me some of the slides that he had borrowed from the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in order to write a book on Canadian palaeontology. The sample set contained insects with bizarre adaptations for life at low Reynolds numbers, and obvious ecological associations, spurring an interest that ultimately led to a research in parasitic microhymenoptera. Michael Engel subsequently introduced me to a much wider array of taxa, and we continue to explore the Canadian assemblage together and with the help of colleagues.

What do you hope will be the lasting impact of this paper?

New records, such as this trap-jawed ant, help to flesh out our picture of the amber-producing forest and its inhabitants. I hope that a comprehensive account of this assemblage will eventually provide insights into terrestrial conditions that are unavailable from other fossil types, and that this will shed some light on changes in diversity and conditions leading up to the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.

Where will your next line of research on this topic take you?  

With any luck, we will be able to complete our coverage of Hymenoptera in Canadian amber soon, and make more of a concerted effort to cover other insect orders and some of the ecological associations found within the deposit. Grassy Lake amber still has a lot to offer, but it is only one of western Canada’s many amber deposits. As a larger-scale project, we are currently part of a team examining the numerous fragile ambers associated with coals in the region. The goal of this research is to create an amber-based record of forest types and inhabitants that spans more than 10 million years within the Late Cretaceous and Paleocene.

Can you share any interesting anecdotes from this research?

Surface-collecting amber can be quite difficult, because unpolished Canadian amber typically has a matte orange-brown colour, and is often covered with a carbon film or weathering crust. If there is no fractured surface visible and the specimen is not translucent, it can be quite difficult to distinguish from the surrounding coal or shale. Furthermore, there is such a range of shapes and sizes that some of the smaller amber droplets are easily confused with modern seeds. One of the quickest ways to see if you are dealing with amber is to wet the specimen and look for amber’s characteristic lustre, or tap the specimen on your teeth (amber feels like plastic compared to most suspect rocks). Naturally, I have licked quite a few samples in the course of my collecting, and have lost a lot of my appreciation for rabbits.

A selection of amber from Grassy Lake. Photo courtesy Brian Chatterton

A selection of amber from Grassy Lake. Photo courtesy Brian Chatterton

Thanks to Cambridge Journals Online for making this month’s Editor’s Pick Freely Available for the month of September!

This post is a regular series highlighting great papers from the pages of the Canadian Entomologist. 
McKellar R.C., Glasier J.R.N. & Engel M.S. (2013). A new trap-jawed ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Haidomyrmecini) from Canadian Late Cretaceous amber, The Canadian Entomologist, 145 (04) 454-465. DOI:

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ESC/ESO 150th Anniversary Joint Annual Meeting

By Gary Umphrey, University of Guelph & President of ESC-ESO 2013 JAM Organizing Committee

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Greetings Fellow Entomological Enthusiast:

I wish to draw your attention to the following photo, which is of the participants at the Entomological Society of Ontario’s 50th Anniversary meeting, held in Guelph Aug 27-29, 1913. Yes, this meeting was held 100 years ago this past week. And if you peruse the distinguished individuals in the photo you may recognize William Morton Wheeler, the iconic ant man and Ed Wilson’s predecessor in myrmecology at Harvard, sitting on the far left in the front row. Indeed Wheeler was scheduled to present a public lecture, succinctly titled “Ants”, at 8:00 pm on August 28, 1913. Wheeler was only one of the distinguished entomologists at the meeting, and I invite you to check out the second file which will attach names to the people you may not recognize.

ESO 50th Anniversary, 1913

ESO 50th Anniversary, 1913 - names

I am not sure how (or if) you celebrated the anniversary of Wheeler’s talk (a Bitburger in my Ants! cup worked for me), but in any case I might suggest that a good way for you to do so would be to register for the special 150th Anniversary entomological extravaganza, the Joint Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of Canada and Entomological Society of Ontario in Guelph, Oct 20-23, 2013. The deadline for early registration at a deep discount is fast approaching — indeed it is TODAY! The conference website is at:

http://www.uoguelph.ca/debu/esc-eso2013/esc-eso.html

This will be a very full program this year, and it has been necessary to extend it to include Wednesday afternoon. To ensure that you won’t have to miss out on any presentations you might want to attend, we are including lunches with your registration fee for the Monday to Wednesday concurrent sessions at the Delta Hotel. Registration also includes the opening reception and banquet.

An unadvertised attraction of this meeting: you will have opportunities to have your photo taken with Jeremy McNeil, the King of Entomological T-Shirts! You will probably want to be wearing an entomology t-shirt yourself. If you don’t bring a favorite shirt (or even if you do) we will have a limited supply of commemorative 150th JAM t-shirts. If you find the official logo too edgy, are troubled by the raging controversies that have surrounded this logo, or simply don’t like biting flies, we will have t-shirts with an alternative logo as well.

The deadline for submitting a presentation (talk or poster) is September 15. Note that abstracts are not required, we only want your title. Space on the program for talks is limited, so don’t delay if you want to present.

The Delta Hotel is our official conference hotel, and we have a block of rooms available at a special price that includes parking (regularly $12/day). While there are certainly other hotels in Guelph, and some at lower prices, the Delta is a very nice hotel and there is real convenience in staying at the conference hotel, especially if we get some nasty weather. The reserved block is quite limited, and so if you wish to stay in the Delta I would suggest making your reservation as soon as possible.

To our entomological colleagues in the U.S.A., YOUR PRESIDENT WILL BE HERE! Yes, Dr. Rob Wiedenmann, President of the Entomological Society of America, will be speaking on Sunday in the opening session, and we would be delighted if you could attend as well (subject to meeting capacity, we certainly can’t handle the numbers that attend an E.S.A. meeting). Here’s a chance to burnish your international reputation and meet your President at the same time, simply by making a jaunt to Canada to attend our meeting!

I would encourage you to join us in the celebrations of the ESC/ESO Sesquicentennial Anniversary JAM and join William Morton Wheeler and his colleagues in the rich historical legacy of special anniversary entomological meetings in Canada.

ESC-ESO-Logo-Full-Colour400px

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A Common Name for Every Beetle

By Laura Timms, Chair of the ESC Common Names Committee
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Hello,
The Common Names Committee of the Entomological Society of Canada, in collaboration with the Canadian Wildlife Service (Environment Canada), is planning a project to develop common names for all beetles in Canada. We are looking for to hire contractors to assist in developing English and French common names.  Since this order contains many families, we are looking for Anglophone and Francophone Coleopterists who specialize in more than one group of Coleoptera species.  Compensation will be based on the number of species assigned to each contractor.  If interested, please send your C.V. to Joanna.James@ec.gc.ca by August 16th, 2013.  Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
Thanks!
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Bonjour,
Le Comité des noms communs de la Société d’entomologie du Canada, en collaboration avec le Service canadien de la faune (Environnement Canada) prépare un projet pour développer des noms communs pour tous les coléoptères au Canada. Des experts seront engagés pour développer les noms communs en anglais et en français. Puisque cet ordre contient plusieurs familles, nous cherchons des experts anglophones et francophones qui se spécialisent sur plus d’un groupe d’espèces de coléoptères. La rémunération sera basée sur le nombre d’espèces assignées à chaque expert. Si intéressé, svp envoyer votre C.V. à Joanna.James@ec.gc.ca  avant le 16 août, 2013. Svp n’hésitez pas à nous contacter si vous avez des questions.
Merci!
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From filing cabinets to fieldwork: an investigation into Aphid population variability

By Chris Buddle, Editor of the Canadian Entomologist

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I am pleased to present the “Editor’s Pick” manuscript for the current issue of The Canadian Entomologist. This pick was a paper by Bob Lamb, Patricia MacKay and Andrei Alyokhin, titled “Seasonal dynamics of three coexisting aphid species: implications for estimating population variability”

I had always admired the ongoing work on aphids, spearheaded by Bob and Pat. Their work is always relevant, meticulous, framed in an important and broader ecological context, and they have a ‘model system’ to work with. This is the kind of researcher many more junior entomologists look up to.  The current paper is no exception. In this work, Bob and Pat joined up with Andrei Alyokhin and present a careful study of population variability and effectively use this metric to better understand population dynamics over time.  For me, I see much value in this approach, and can see how this kind of work could effectively be used in teaching students about how to best describe, understand, and quantify population dynamics.  I’m also inspired to see long-term data with arthropods. These kinds of data are so useful, but relatively rare. It’s great to see Bob, Pat and Andrei publish thoughtful and important work using such data.  I may also look around some old filing cabinets at my University…

Bob was kind enough to answer a few questions about this work, with input from his co-authors.

What inspired this work?

When Pat MacKay and I were anticipating eventual retirement from paying jobs as entomologists, we decided to begin a study of an aphid population that could be pursued as long as we could walk trails and count aphids. Our goal was to figure out why aphid populations seem to be so unstable. Eventually we wrote up our findings on the stability of one native species over the first 10 years of a study we hope will go on for at least another 10 years. A few years ago we realized we needed comparative data, but were too old to start on a 20-year study of another aphid species. The solution was to write to colleagues who also had long-term data sets, to see if they were interested in looking at their data from this perspective. So far the colleagues we have contacted have been enthusiastic collaborators. The first was Andrei Alyokhin our coauthor on the current paper. He gave us access to 60 years of data on three aphid species. The first paper on the stability of these aphids was published in the Canadian Entomologist two years ago. The current paper extends that earlier work, looking now at how aphid seasonal biology affects our estimates of stability.

Bob Lamb, sporting "aphid hunting gear"

Bob Lamb, sporting “aphid hunting gear”

What do you hope will be the lasting impact of this paper?

We hope that this paper will help convince other researchers that Joel Heath’s metric, PV, which we use to quantify population variability, is a robust way to quantify one aspect of the stability of populations. If more researchers adopt this metric, ecologists will have a much greater opportunity to apply a comparative approach and identify factors that contribute to stability or instability of populations.

Where will your next line of research on this topic take you?

Pat MacKay and I continue to extend our time series on the abundance of a native aphid, and are now focusing more on the ecological processes that cause our five populations to rise and fall. We also hope to expand our studies of stability to still more aphid species, but also species with very different life histories. At the moment I am working with a colleague, Terry Galloway, University of Manitoba, on several time-series of ectoparasite abundance on birds.

Do you have any interesting anecdotes about this research?

One of the most interesting aspects of the work on aphids from potatoes is the source of the data – 60 years or more of weekly aphid counts. The data for the early years were discovered by Andrei Alyokhin in an abandoned filing cabinet stored in a barn at the University of Maine. Andrei was a new faculty member at the time exploring his research facilities. His predecessors had maintained meticulous records of aphid densities in potato plots since soon after World War II. Andrei was quick to recognize the value of this data, and more importantly recognized the need to go on collecting the data in the same way. The result is an amazing data set, one of the longest continuous records at one location of the dynamics of multi-voltine species.

Lesson 1: newly-hired entomologists should begin their careers by searching old filing cabinets.

Lesson 2: meticulous long-term records can be invaluable, sometime in ways that you might not anticipate.

Andrei discovering data in old filing cabinets

Andrei discovering data in old filing cabinets

Lamb R.J., MacKay P.A. & Alyokhin A. (2013). Seasonal dynamics of three coexisting aphid species: implications for estimating population variability, The Canadian Entomologist, 145 (03) 283-291. DOI:

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The Royal Canadian Mint’s “Animal Architects” Coin Series Celebrates Insects and the ESC!

By Rebecca Hallett, ESC First Vice-President

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A year ago, an exciting new collaboration was initiated between the ESC and the Royal Canadian Mint. This collaboration grew from a letter sent by then President, Michel Cusson, and myself as chair of the Scientific Policy and Education committee, to the Mint commending them for the inclusion of insects on Canadian coins and offering the services of the ESC as a resource for the development of future insect coins. The response from the Mint was very warm and they immediately invited the ESC to be involved in the Animal Architects coin series.

Bee-coin

The Animal Architects coin series celebrates the “exceptional architects of Canada’s animal world and their unique constructions”. I was thrilled to see that the first coin in this new series has recently been released, depicting an iconic insect architect, the honeybee, with its hive.

View the sale sheet here for the 2012 $3 FINE SILVER COIN – ANIMAL ARCHITECTS: BEE & HIVE

The Mint also decided to recognize the involvement of the ESC in this series and, in 2013, to commemorate the Sesquicentennial of the ESC on the certificates of authenticity that accompany the coins.

The Bee & Hive coin has proven to be extremely popular and is selling rapidly.  The depiction of insects on coins helps to increase appreciation for nature in general, and insects in particular, among the Canadian and coin-collecting public. I hope you will consider supporting this endeavour by treating yourself or a loved one to one or all of the coins in this series.

Coins can be ordered from the Royal Mint website:

http://www.mint.ca/store/coin/14-oz-fine-silver-coin-animal-architects-bee–hive-2013-prod1670011

Or obtained through one of the Mint’s dealers:

http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/customer-service/dealer-locator-1400026

I’ve got my Bee & Hive coin reserved and am rushing off to Toronto tomorrow to collect it!

Keep your eyes open in the fall for the next Animal Architects coin to emerge…

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Cicada invasion in eastern Canada?

By David McCorquodale, Dean of Science and Technology, Cape Breton University

There is a perception that Nova Scotia and Cape Breton (where I live) may be subject to an invasion of cicadas.  The perception seems to stem from the mass emergence of cicadas in the northeastern USA this spring and summer.  What an opportunity to build suspense and stress!  Consider this headline from Design and Trend on 09 May 2013: CICADAPOCALYPSE: Mass Exodus from the Ground.  A Google search revealed dozens of similar, but admittedly not as sensationalist, headlines from news outlets in the northeastern US and a few in Canada.

In my 35 years as an entomologist in Canada I have seen, heard and collected many cicadas.  The delightful Dog Day Cicada (Tibicen canicularis) sings from the White Birch trees near my house every summer.  It is the species I have seen and heard most frequently.  Cicadas are big (some more than 30 mm long, all at least 20 mm long), loud (at least to those who have not lost their high end hearing) and widely distributed across southern Canada. Sound production is fascinating.  Males have tymbals under their wings.  Tymbals have taut membranes across an echo chamber.  The membranes vibrate to produce the high pitched, incessant, droning calls on hot summer days.

Tibicen canicularis. Photo by Denis Doucet

However I suspect many people have never seen or knowingly heard cicadas. Why?  Probably because most of their life is spent as larvae underground sucking liquids out of roots so they can grow, mature and emerge as adults.  Males sing from tree tops, mate with females who then lay eggs on twigs, when the eggs hatch the larvae fall to the ground and burrow to feed on roots.  The larvae burrow down among the roots, not to be seem until they emerge as adults.

How can we reconcile these disparate pieces of information: i) cicadas are common and widespread where Canadians live, ii) most people have never seen them and iii) WARNING mass invasion of cicadas this summer!

We cannot because there will not be a mass emergence in Nova Scotia or indeed in eastern Canada.  There will be about the same number of adult cicadas in eastern Canada as in any other year.  No one will be able to detect a difference in the number of cicadas in 2013 compared to previous years.  Perhaps there will be more attention on cicadas — that is a good thing.

How can I say this and go against all the headlines?  The first step is to consider what species of cicadas occur in eastern Canada and compare that to which species of cicadas have mass emergences.  In Nova Scotia there are three species of cicadas.  All three are ‘annual’ cicadas.  That is adults emerge each year, mate, lay eggs, larvae develop and then the adults emerge the next year.  There are not dramatic differences in the number of adults from year to year.  Males sing form the treetops every year and most year most people are blissfully ignorant they are there.

However in the eastern USA there are several species of cicadas (Periodical Cicadas, Magicacada spp.) with a different life cycle.  These cicadas also have males who sing, females who mate and then lay eggs on twigs and larvae who feed on roots.  But the next step is different, they keep feeding and do not emerge as adults for 13 or 17 years.  The adults that emerge are ‘teenagers’, not one year olds.  Some periodical cicadas emerge every year, but some years, including 2013 in the eastern USA, there are enormous cohorts of adults that emerge.  The timing, evolution and distribution of these periodical cicadas are fascinating (see Magicicada Mapping Project Homepage http://www.magicicada.org/map_project/maps.php, A National Geographic Project).

Legitimately, these intriguing insects are attracting lots of attention. Because many people have a fear (unrealistic in my opinion) of such a large insects there has been undue media attention to the mass emergence, the sensationalist headlines  and unfounded stress in some people.

In Nova Scotia there are no reasonable ground to be concerned about a mass emergence of cicadas this summer.  The three species of cicadas in Nova Scotia all have an annual life cycle.  Numbers of adults that emerge each year are similar.  We will not be able to see any difference in populations of adults this year compared to other years.

Despite being able to ally the concerns of Nova Scotians, I feel I am missing a spectacular natural phenomenon.  Perhaps this is a reason to relocate from my Cape Breton home?  A good one, but there are lots of good entomological reasons to stay.

For more information on cicadas, check out www.bugguide.org (search for cicada) and a paper published earlier in 2013: Biogeography of the Cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) of North America, North of Mexico by Allen F. Sanborn and Polly K. Phillips in Diversity 5: 166-239; doi:10.3390/d5020166.

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ESC Members: It’s official now! — Membres de la SEC: c’est maintenant officiel!

Français

We are pleased to announce that we will be co-locating our 2016 annual meeting with the International Congress of Entomology (ICE) hosted by the Entomological Society of America (ESA) in Orlando, Florida (see http://ice2016orlando.org/)! The ESC Governing Board has voted to accept the ESA’s invitation to join them and other national entomological societies at the ICE 2016 venue.

ICE2016_logo

We also are pleased to introduce Murray Isman (UBC) as our appointed representative to the ICE Organizing Committee. Murray is already poised to collaborate with the ESA in ensuring a smooth merger of meetings. Of the options presented to us by the ESA in their invitation, we have opted for a separate, pre-ICE conduct of our Society’s business, and then full access to what will be a diverse and rich ICE scientific program under the theme of Entomology without Borders.

So mark your calendars for September 23- 30, 2016, and look forward to more announcements as we move closer to the big event.

Your ESC Executive
Orlando_Lake Eola1

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English

Nous sommes heureux d’annoncer que nous tiendrons notre réunion annuelle 2016 sur le site du International Congress of Entomology (ICE) accueillit par la Société d’entomologie d’Amérique (ESA) à Orlando en Floride (voir http://ice2016orlando.org/)! Le conseil d’administration de la SEC a voté pour accepter l’invitation de l’ESA à nous joindre à eux et à d’autres sociétés entomologiques nationales sur le site de l’ICE 2016.

ICE2016_logo

Nous sommes également heureux de présenter Murray Isman (UBC) comme notre représentant nommé sur le comité organisateur de l’ICE. Murray est déjà prêt à collaborer avec l’ESA afin d’assurer une fusion harmonieuse des réunions. Parmi les options présentées par l’ESA dans leur invitation, nous avons opté pour une réunion séparée, pré-ICE, pour les affaires de notre Société, suivie d’un accès complet à ce qui devrait être un programme scientifique riche et diversifié à l’ICE, sous le thème de Entomology without Borders[1].

Alors réservez les dates du 23 au 30 septembre 2016 à vos agendas, et nous avons hâte de vous communiquer d’autres annonces alors que nous approcherons du grand évènement.

Votre conseil exécutif de la SEC

[1] Entomologie sans frontières

Orlando_Lake Eola1

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Insect Monitoring and Twitter

By Scott Meers, Insect Management Specialist, Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development.

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My role as an entomologist with Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development consists largely of counting insects. We monitor the populations of seven different species on a provincial scale and several more on either an ad hoc or regional basis. We also carry out surveillance for potential new insect pests in crops. It is important to note that Alberta is a relatively large place, ranging 1066 km south to north and is 466 km at the widest. There are over 10,000,000 ha of land devoted to crop production. We do our monitoring work with two permanent staff and 2 to 3 summer students.

The first thing that becomes obvious is that we can’t do this work by travelling the entire expanse of the province. So we must communicate with those that are out in the fields and capture the results of their “footprints in the field”. Through various reporting systems we have had good success in developing a representative monitoring system. Check out our homepage at www.agriculture.alberta.ca/bugs-pest.

So where does Twitter fit in? In the two years that we have been using twitter we have collected nearly 800 farm related followers. Twitter is a great place to announce the results of our findings. If a set of traps or online reporting systems are reporting a concern we tweet it. The impact is instantaneous and widespread. Followers retweet (it is common for our in-season tweets to have 5 or more retweets), they ask questions, they check their fields and they let us know if their findings match ours. Talk about impact and talk about a reality check, it is awesome. We can then improve the quality and accuracy of the information we present.

We announce our new extension materials on Twitter. If we have a new You Tube video, radio broadcast (weekly during the growing season), new web page or even a chnage to our homepage, we tweet it. It is at least part of the reason we have over 2,000 hits on how to put together our Bertha Armyworm traps (we only put out 200 sets of traps across the province in 2012).

A big part of integrated pest management is the timing of insect activity. We have models for some insects and when they are supposed to be in their active scouting stage we tweet about it. Again instant feed-back! This helps us adjust and time our monitoring efforts to maximum efficiency. For those insects we don’t have models for we suggest timings based on experience. Agrologists and farmers tell us when they start seeing them. Again, awesome! Through Twitter we know when and where insects are showing up across the province. I am happy to retweet any credible source on insect activity and give credit where credit is due. A couple examples of this revolve around an outbreak of bertha armyworm (BAW) (Mamestra configurata) in central Alberta in 2012.

One case involves a comment about BAW in corn which is very unusual, partially because we have very little corn, and partially because BAW generally feeds on broadleaved plants. The conversation drew the attention of neighbors that were growing corn and they asked to see the field while we were inspecting it. The bottom line: the BAW laid their eggs on  lambsquarters which was uncontrolled under the canopy. The neighbors that had control of the lambsquarters had no BAW. Thanks to @landrashewski.

BAW in corn. Started on and ate all the lambsquarters then moved onto the corn cobs.

BAW in corn. Started on and ate all the lambsquarters then moved onto the corn cobs.

The second case was BAW in field peas, another relatively rare situation. The pictures tell the story though. There was substantial damage. If we have another BAW outbreak we will be sure to encourage producers to check their pea fields as well. Thanks to @Klams81.

Surveillance is where Twitter really shines. Last year I didn’t keep track of the requests for ID via Twitter but it was constant throughout the summer. There was a trend and repeats to the requests and there were questions about insects that we seldom see but were more common in 2012. Twitter gives us a chance to be in fields virtually. This a huge advantage because we can’t always be there in person.

We have also used Twitter to help us find fields to survey and to get permission from producers to access their fields. In addition we have recruited help from agrologists and farmers through Twitter. When we ask they are often happy to help us because they have been following us and the work we are doing. We also have several examples of people joining our monitoring network because of finding us on Twitter.

In short, Twitter is a valuable tool for monitoring insects in our program. We use it extensively. We welcome everything from the virtual coffee shop conversations to the private requests for identification. Twitter is, and will continue to be, an integral part of how we monitor insects in Alberta crops. It is good to be a part of the community and to give and receive in equal measure. We are looking forward to seeing what Twitter will bring in the new crop year!

What is this – a common Twitter question to @ABbugcounter last year. We reared it out and it turned out to be Pontia protodice or Checkered White Butterfly.

What is this – a common Twitter question to @ABbugcounter last year. We reared it out and it turned out to be Pontia protodice or Checkered White Butterfly.

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