Insect pollinator conservation has attracted a lot of attention and rightfully so. There are so many unanswered questions about our six-legged friends, but the work goes way beyond vacuuming up a few thousand bugs. Once the days become cooler and shorter. We roll up (or roll down...it gets pretty chilly in the lab) our sleeves and begin the process of insect pining and identification.
Step 1) Clean out your freezer full of specimens! (picture 1) Step 2) Empty out each specimen container carefully (picture 2) Step 3) Stab each specimen with a sharp fancy pin, ideally right through the thorax for most insects (pictures 3). Step 3) Once everyone has been staked, we print out these fancy labels with QR codes that tell us the collector, date, place, and flower the insect was collected on (see picture 5). Step 4) Now that everyone has an origin story, the identifications can begin! It's best to sort by eye first. Ie, big, small, bee, non-bee, maybe bee? (picture 4) Step 5) If you're feeling brave and want to be liked by your taxonomist, sort the insects as far as possible. Male/female, and ideally to genus. For us, all of non-bees are fine at the order level and will be further identified to genus and species when possible. Our bees, however, are key for establishing baseline data about what bees are here in East TN so species level is what we're aiming for. Step 6) Gather as many boxes as possible, pop your specimens in and to the taxonomist, we goooo! (picture 6, photo credit, the most excellent Dr. Laura Russo)
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