The Daily Bucket is a place to put your observations of the world around you. Flowers blooming, leaves falling, frost frosting, bugs crawling- each event noted is a drop in the bucket. Please let us know what is happening in your neck of the woods. Leave info on weather, plants, animals, and so on in a comment including, as close as you feel comfortable doing, your location.
December 30, 2012. Tallahassee Florida. Sunny and cold (low 40s at the moment). One white pelican visible on the lake earlier. First red-bellied nuthatch I've seen at the feeder since I've put them back up. Otherwise the usual lake (Coots, GBH, Great Egret) and feeder (mourning dove, cardinal, carolina chickadee, tufted titmouse) birds.
But that's not the topic of this bucket...
Years ago my graduate advisor told me a story from a vacation he took on some Caribbean island. He is a gregarious man and struck up a conversation with one of the locals about the weather back home (Chicago). The man he spoke with had never been off the island and had never seen snow. He was having a hard time visualizing it. He knew about ice and eventually was able to wrap his head around a place with crushed up ice lying around all over the place. At which point he said something like: how do all the little bugs and insects survive that?
A very good question.
Insects and other arthropods that live in seasonal climates often go through a process called diapause. Diapause is a slowing or even complete halt of developmental and physiological processes. It is one example of dormancy. Other kinds of dormancy such as hibernation or aestivation are marked by reduced physiological activity but not a halt to development.
In insects diapause occurs at different developmental stages in different species. Some species have egg diapause, others have larval, pupal, or nymph diapause. In species living in temperate climate diapause is usually a response to cold temperatures. In other environments diapause may be a response to seasonal drought or seasonal availability of food.
Climate change is potentially very stressful to diapausing organisms. In some cases a shorter, warmer winter may increase survival or allow species to expand into areas where they did not formerly occur (which can have negative repercussions on other species). However reduced snow cover can expose diapausing organisms to environmental extremes. Changing climates can also cause diapausing individuals to expend more energy and exhaust their food reserves. Similarly the change in climate may put the organism's annual cycle out of sink with their food reserves.
I'm planning a long term project that I will work on with students, both in my classes and those that are interested in spending more time and working independently. I want to set up regular insect biodiversity monitoring of urban and rural locations near Tallahassee. I can more about this in a future diary once I have more of the details worked out.
Two weeks ago I did an evening of black lighting. Like last year, the fall of 2012 has been quite mild with the first frosts in the last ten days. I have noticed that katydids were calling much later into the fall both years than data collected by Prof. Thomas Walker at the University of Florida and posted on the Singing Insects of North America website would suggest is normal.
This was my first time black lighting in December. Comparing what I got in early and late November samples in 2011 and 2012 suggests higher diversity this year although I am just basing that on what I photographed. Also the extremely dry summer of 2011 could be the driving factor in any difference. So for future reference here is what I found on December 16, 2012. I haven't IDed most them yet - I must confess to being quite intimidated by moths.
And moths are the dominant group of cool weather insects. Although the number of moth individuals was fairly modest, six species were represented.
The other dominant group of insects during the fall in the past has been midges and other small flies. Only one species was present in any numbers.
Otherwise I was surprised by the diversity of insects I saw. Each was only represented by a single individual but it showed that quite a diverse array of nocturnal insects were still active in mid-December.
This carabid (Ground) beetle is one of the most common beetle species coming to the light for a good portion of the year.
These two 'hoppers' and a small plant bug were the representatives of the order Hemiptera.
Also present was this parasitoid wasp (Ichneumonidae).
And a couple of firsts
The first spider ever on the sheet - this crab spider
And, somewhat surprisingly, the first mayfly ever on the sheet. A new order for my yard.
Also there were several things that I couldn't identify at all from my photos later. Here are two. My Olympus is very handy for taking photos on the sheet but the image quality is limited.
The second one may be some sort of odd looking caddisfly. The first one is a complete mystery to me. I am going to start collecting reference specimens to key out properly once our study gets underway. But this should allow us to check back and see what I did before systematic sampling started.