Declines in insect biomass and biodiversity could have huge consequences for the function of our ecosystems, yet insects as a group are extremely difficult to monitor because of their incredible (and amazing!) biodiversity. In our lab, we are interested in the maintenance of beneficial biodiversity, and this means we are always exploring new ways to monitor and survey insects. One of my recent questions has been, how can we track insect populations in a way that is rapid, accessible, and doesn't require killing lots of insects (and maintaining insect collections forever!)?

I spent a year (of early Sunday mornings) surveying the insect roadkill on the side of a highway bridge in Knoxville, trying to see whether this method could serve as a monitoring method (Russo 2025). It had some drawbacks though. For one, such surveys could only be conducted on roadsides with Jersey barriers (those tall concrete barriers on the sides of some roads), and involved some risks for the surveyor. The results were fascinating though... the insect community in the roadkill changed completely from week to week, turning over constantly over the course of the year. This just illustrated how dynamic insect communities really are!

The roadkill surveys also showed how many insects we kill with our vehicles. There are around 19,000 highway bridges in Tennessee. If I conservatively extrapolate my results to just those, we kill around 1,000,000 (1 million) insects a year on highway bridges in Tennessee alone each year. 

My collaborator, Will Kuhn (Discover Life in America) and I wanted to try some of these survey methods in the National Park. Of course, there are no Jersey barriers in the Smoky Mountains, so we had to come up with some other ideas... such as the Buzz Buggy! This was inspired by this work by Svenningsen et al (2021): we built a car net, a big net that sits on top of Will's car while we drive around Cade's Cove (getting some stares and questions from visitors).

On the same car, we also included yellow sticky traps on the front bumper. This was to be comparable to other Martin et al (2018), who also used this method.

As a non-lethal method, we included hand netting surveys for flower-visiting insects. For these, we built little non-lethal push pops. We put a clear plexiglass top on plungers that we filled with foam. The insect can be trapped inside and manipulated to take multiple photos that, while undignified, nevertheless leave the insect unharmed.

We are going to compare all of these traps to the most standard of entomological trapping methods, the malaise trap. But, importantly, we are accounting for all the costs involved in each method, including the cost of the trap and materials needed to implement, the time to plan and build each time, the time to implement the traps and process the specimens, and the level of taxonomic resolution we get for each sampling method. By conducting a cost-benefit analysis, we will learn more about the different methods and their relative usefulness for tracking insects in a rapidly changing world.

The Russo Lab did a guest lecture on invertebrate diversity for the Tennessee Naturalist Program. We had a great time at Seven Islands State Birding Park, and found some really cool bugs, including a praying mantis, a saddleback caterpillar (that we named Greg), and a Gibellula fungus infecting a spider. The Gibellula are a group of parasitic fungi that attack arachnids: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/328134-Gibellula

Members of the Russo lab participated in a lot of outreach events this semester, including the Rocky Top Bioblitz, an event for Girl Scouts held on campus, and an outreach event at Seven Islands State Birding Park (which resulted in some great photos!). I also gave a talk about BEES at the Butterfly Festival at the UTK Arboretum.

We love doing outreach activities and getting involved in local events, plus we can always show off our best bee costumes.

I am happy to announce that Amani's first, first author paper, which used data from her Master's Degree thesis and the first two years of the Feed A Bee Project, has finally been published! I'm so proud of Mani's work and of my students in general, and so happy to have this first Feed A Bee (and truly my first pub on the TN work) be published.

Here's a link to the article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10980-023-01728-5

Khalil, A., Sykes, V. and Russo, L., 2023. Floral identity and availability along with surrounding landscapes affect pollinator communities in eastern Tennessee. Landscape Ecology, pp.1-16.

Methods summary:
Over two years and across five landscapes in eastern Tennessee, we surveyed flower visitors to fixed communities of 18 species of native perennial plants (the Feed A Bee project). Mani was interested in whether the landscape surrounding these sites had a significant effect on the abundance, species richness, and composition of the flower visitor community. Previous works showed significant land-use effects, but importantly we controlled the plant community so that it did not vary along with land use.

A heuristic diagram of the plot composition and fixed design, with the radii of varying land use that we measured (figure not to scale). L stands for plants in the mint family (Lamiaceae), A stands for plants in the sunflower family (Asteraceae), and F stands for plants in the pea family (Fabaceae). M was a mix of all three.

Results summary:
We found no consistent, significant effects of land use at any radius around the site on overall flower visitor abundance, species richness, or composition. Plant abundance and identity were the main drivers of the flower visitor community. However, we did find some interesting land use effects on specific insects of interest.

The most abundant non-bee insect was the soldier beetle, which was significantly more abundant when there was more agriculture in the surrounding landscape.

We also saw a positive relationship between honeybee abundance and developed (urban) land use around the sites.

As the spring ephemerals start to bloom, the Russo Lab is getting busy visiting bee aggregations and starting new projects.

​This past weekend, Dr. Russo, grad student Sam, and I (undergraduate but future grad student Sydney!), went to Dean's Woods to help clean out invasive species. The naturalist club also attended (pictured here in a big pile of pulled invasives) and Sam got some great experience teaching the undergraduates about Andrena specialists!

Afterwards, we went to visit a few local bee aggregations! The colletes aggregation was super active with males waiting to pounce on any emerging females. The best moment was when we saw a mating ball rolling down the hill. Since then, Dr. Russo has made the "getting the ball rolling" joke about a million times. Luckily she captured a video of the moment shown below!

We then went to Seven Islands State Birding Park to visit a couple more aggregations! There, Sam taught me how to catch bees with a net as I have only used the vacuum before. The key was to know that bees are "positively phototropic" which soon became our favorite phrase. We are practicing as we will start Sam's new project in the Cedar Glades soon! More is to come!!

I hope your spring is progressing well!

As the red maples in town finish their bloom and life emerges all around us from its winter dormancy, it seems like the perfect time for us to reinstate the EEB Naturalists' Club here at UTK.

Are the frogs calling? Are the birds migrating? Are there chanterelles? Where are the best ground-nesting bee aggregations? What's blooming when and where? How many osprey nests are there in town and where can I see otters?

If you're fascinated by the natural world and want to learn more or share your discoveries, join us for the first 2023 meeting of the club! Let me know your availability on this when2meet for next week.


https://www.when2meet.com/?18844786-IeQje

So happy that this paper finally came out! Lots of work with lots of collaborators. Jane did a great write up about the paper here:

Our research contact in the GSMNP, Paul Super, alerted us to the presence of this unique aggregation of ground-nesting bees in the national park a couple of years ago. Apparently, this space used to be an old tennis court, and there must be something special about the way the soil was managed, because there are tons of Andrena asteris (among others) nesting in this small area. Andrena asteris specialize on late season Asteraceae pollen. They also leave a sand plug in their nest entrance, so it is very difficult to dig up their nests (although I believe Bryan Danforth has successfully done so!).

This area is also absolutely gorgeous in the autumn. Here are some selected photos from 2020.

Sam and I went back this autumn, so here are some photos from this year!

It's been a while since anyone posted on the lab blog, because mainly Mani handled that in the past and she's successfully graduated, defended her thesis, and gotten a fantastic job. But we have new exciting project going on in the lab and I thought I'd share some of the new things we are working on!

New graduate student, Erika Dalliance, is interested in ground-nesting bees and the things that make them aggregate. We've decided to start with the relatively easy-to-study chimney bee (Anthophora abrupta). Not only have we found multiple aggregations of this species, but they dig shallow nests that are easier to survey/monitor (as compared to the Andrena nest Mani and I dug up a couple years ago that was 37 inches deep).

Things are finally warming up here in Knoxville and the Russo Lab is very eager to get outside and enjoy it. Our excellent undergraduate, Sydney Baldwin (left image) spent some time getting her hands dirty at the Feed A Bee plots at the UT Gardens. 

We would also like to acknowledge the other MVP of the Russo Lab, our lab vehicle Xyxy, short for Megachile xylocopoides (right image). We loaded her up with 16, 20lb bags of mulch and 12, 40lbs bags of compost and she only squeaked a little! 

Here's a (few mulch specks in your water bottle) toast to Field Season 2021!