Collection Management of Arthropods
Sorting Centers & Protocols for Processing Samples
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 21:10:05 -0400
To: m-irwin2@uiuc.edu (Michael E. Irwin)
From: pick@pick.uga.edu (John Pickering)
Subject: ATBI insect sorting centers and protocols
Cc: padler@clemson.edu, randerson@mus-nature.ca, ebernard@utk.edu,
brianb@mizar.usc.edu, moth@ra.msstate.edu, coddington.jon@nmnh.si.edu,
colwell@uconnvm.uconn.edu, cvcove01@homer.louisville.edu,
coyle@wpoff.wcu.edu, ldurden@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu,
whallwac@sas.upenn.edu, mivie@montana.edu, djanzen@sas.upenn.edu,
Johnson.2@osu.edu, Keith_Langdon@nps.gov, longinoj@elwha.evergreen.edu,
SMARSHALL@evbhort.uoguelph.ca, JMCHUGH@bugs.ent.uga.edu,
spruance@infinet.com, jmorse@clemson.edu, becky_nichols@nps.gov,
j-oswald@tamu.edu, Chuck_Parker@nps.gov, acrofly@silcom.com,
schwartzm@em.agr.ca, msharkey@byron.ca.uky.edu, dsiegel@nsf.gov,
skillen@pick.uga.edu, cthompso@sel.barc.usda.gov,
dwagner@uconnvm.uconn.edu, bwiegman@unity.ncsu.edu,
ewilson@oeb.harvard.edu, wooddm@em.agr.cam
Mike,
Delighted that you are interested in helping with the ATBI and are
interested in working with the Therevidae from the Smokies. This email
considers your specific needs and our general goals of recruiting taxonomic
experts and of setting up a network of arthropod sorting centers.
I recommend that you and other taxonomists wishing to join us do the following:
1) Explore our website <www.discoverlife.org> and then register yourself
under "Get Involved." This will allow everyone who needs to contact you to
get your address, email, phone number, etc. through our "Who's Involved"
section. You can similarly get the addresses of the contacts that you
need.
2) Contact your taxon's team coordinators (see "Who's Involved" under
"Organizational Structure" then "Taxonomy Teams;" in your case, for the
Diptera, contact Peter Adler, Steve Marshall, and Chris Thompson) and offer
your services. Your correspondence and the coordinators' response should
be copied to <dl@discoverlife.org> so that we can list you on our website
as our Therevidae expert. Based on Peter's response to you, I'll presume
that you are game and have completed this step.
3) In your specific case where you want Malaise trap samples, lets work out
a plan with the Diptera Team and other parties interested in processing
Malaise trap samples to get your specimens pulled. I'll help facilitate as
best I can. The following discussion raises a larger issue that I want all
entomologists (and other creepy-crawly-ophiles) to consider.
First, what's currently available. Elizabeth Skillen and I have run 16
Malaise traps in GSMNP continuously since April, 1997 (8 in hardwood coves
and 8 on drier ridges). We have pulled the Ichneumonoidea and Symphyta
from some of these samples (from all 1997 samples and most of 1998). Our
residuals (including flies) are store in 70% ethanol, frozen, in
heat-sealed plastic bags (which require a heat-sealer to close, if samples
are not transferred to vials). If you need fresher material, for DNA
analysis or whatever, we can arrange for you to work with newer material
from our on-going trapping. Addition trapping is planned this year in
other habitats.
While you are welcome to visit my lab in Athens, Georgia, and pick through
our samples, I'm more interested in solving the larger issue and developing
a protocol with all the dipterists (and hymenopterists, coleopterists,...)
to distribute all taxa from bulk samples. The ATBI is establishing General
Sorting Centers that will sort samples to order (or groups of orders) for
distribution in ethanol. One set of these fractions will include flies.
Could you help the Dipterists to develop detailed protocols for sorting and
distributing these flies? Could you and the other dipterists arrange for
laboratory facilities and labor for Fly Sorting Center(s) that would
receive flies from our General Sorting Centers and then distribute them to
all participating dipterists. I hope to avoid the alternative in which
each dipterists pulls selected taxa and then sends residuals to another
dipterist, who in turn does the same, ad nauseam, in an inefficient,
specimen-damaging, serial process.
What costs could the dipterists cover? Could they help finance some of the
General Sorting Centers' costs of getting things sorted to diptera? What
fraction of the cost could they or you cover of the Diptera Sorting
Center(s)? Could your PEET grant cover Therevidae? What about your fellow
dipterists and their taxa? While Discover Life in America is seeking
funds to help ALL taxa, we currently have very limited funds and are
seeking all the help that we can get. Our first General Sorting Center
will be in a Park house near the Cosby Camp Ground, opening in March with a
new iMac with Biota databasing software; we'll add microscopes, etc. as we
can commit funds. We may be able to provide you an army of volunteers and
students willing to help, but we'll need help from experts to train them.
How might we involve entomology courses and high schools in this
undertaking, for example?
Mike, sorry to blast you with more than you were expecting. This email is
as much to you as it is to the other dipterists (and entomologists, ...)
who need to come up with integrated and taxon specific plans for handling
bulk samples. I hope it prompts us into action.
Do the dipterists wish to take the lead on this, or should I poke the
Hymenopterists or another team into action?
4) Spread the word to your colleagues. We need their help too.
Cheers,
Pick
P. S. Ev & Marion, "Hi." It's been a while!
_________________________________________________________
John Pickering
Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-2602
Office: 706-542-1115 Messages: 706-542-3379
Laboratory: 706-542-1388 FAX: 706-542-3344
e-mail: pick@pick.uga.edu Home: 706-353-7076
Web sites: <www.discoverlife.org> <http://dial.pick.uga.edu>
_________________________________________________________
>Dear John,
>
>I have just heard from Mike Sharkey, and then Peter Adler, that you are
>heading up the new ATBI that has been initiated for the Smoky Mountains.
>As you may know, our group has been working on a world assessment of the
>fly family Therevidae (stiletto flies). We are currently in the third year
>of a five year NSF/PEET grant and are hoping to renew the project for
>another five years, through 2005. Several of us will be joining the
>expedition of the North America Diptera Society (NADS), headed by Brian
>Wiegmann--who is a member of our team--and wondered how one becomes
>involved in the ATBI that is underway. Therevids are quite secretive in
>nature but are collected in large numbers by malaise traps. I also
>understand that you have been running malaise.traps in the ATBI area for
>several years. Would it be possible to either borrow the therevid material
>that has been extracted or look through the soups and extract the therevids
>from them? I am copying Ev Schlinger because he, too, is interested in the
>malaise material, but specifically the family Acroceridae.
>
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Mike
>
>==================================
>Michael E. Irwin, Professor
>Department of Natural Resources
> and Environmental Sciences (NRES)
>University of Illinois
>134 Envir. Ag. Sci. Bld., MC-637
>1101 West Peabody Drive
>Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
>(217) 333-1963 (office telephone)
>(217) 333-6784 (office fax)
>http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/~nres/faculty/directory/irwin_me.html
>http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/cee/therevid/stiletto_fly.html
>==================================
| Discover Life in America | Science | Collection Management of Arthropods | Pickering - 03 February, 1999 |