Entomology 2019
I recently attended the Entomology Conference in St. Louis, Missouri and here are some of the highlights.
I was part of the special symposium “What Everyone Ought to Know about Insect Biodiversity in the Urban Environment” where a number of scientists gave talks and posters about their research related to this topic.
Biodiversity in urban areas
Most of the talks looked at biodiversity of arthropods in some type of urban context. Steven Frank explained that the diversity of dung beetles is lower in urban compared to rural locations and that these beetles prefer hog dung to dog dung. Kayla Perry found that shrinking cities are great for increasing arthropod diversity, with more biodiversity in reclaimed green lots than in urban parks. Alex Wild identified two new ant parasites of queen ants in an urban field research station.
Matthew Bertone identified that there are common arthropods found in homes from across the globe, but that there are also some types of insects that are specific to certain countries. Greg Cowper found that in an abandoned prison there are many different types of arthropods, and the kinds that you find will depend on where you are in the prison grounds. Ashley Kennedy identified caterpillars as the main source of food for birds during nesting season through the efforts of submitted images to her website “What do birds eat?”
Evolution in urban areas
Elsa Youngsteadt (co-authors Judith Bronstein, Paige S. Warren and Rebecca E. Irwin) presented a chapter that was a review in the new urban evolution textbook, “Do cities drive evolutionary change in insect mutualisms?” As it turns out, we don’t really know yet. There are very few studies that address this. We do know that urbanization can influence plants and insects independently, so it is likely that cities can also drive change in mutualisms as well.
I gave a talk on non-adaptive urban evolution in arthropods. The data came from a recent review paper, blogged about here, that looked at all types of organisms and I re-ran the statistics on just arthropods. Turns out, the pattern is the same for arthropods as it is with all organisms combined, urbanization does influence gene flow and genetic drift, but nearly equally with regards to the fragmentation and facilitation model.
What Everyone Ought to Know about Insect Biodiversity in the Urban Environment
We learned that there is still a lot that we don’t know about the urban environment. For example, we still don’t have a unifying definition for what makes a site “urban” even though that is what we all work in! The field is still really new, so there is a lot yet to uncover. It seems like there can be high insect biodiversity in urban areas, but that some types of insects are rarely found in urban areas.
Non-science highlights from the conference
Puppies! The local dog rescue brought adoptable puppies to showcase!
I got to see the famous arch, just a few minutes from my hotel.
I finally got to see Dr. Kristin Winchell in her local university habitat!
I am interested in urban ecology and evolution. Urbanization can have drastic impacts on local ecosystems, both negative and positive, and creates a new environment for organisms to experience. To understand the impacts that urbanization plays on organisms, I look through the lense of population genetics and molecular evolution.
- Urban Observation of the Week: Golden Jackal - July 28, 2021
- Urban Observation of the Week: Bellflowers in Munich - July 21, 2021
- Urban Observation of the Week: So Many Plants - July 14, 2021
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