Month: March 2012

My graduate students have a sense of humour

/ Chris Buddle / 3 Comments

One terrific thing about my laboratory is that we can share a joke or two, and poke some fun at each other. In fact, our laboratory meetings and lunchtime gatherings are often rather boisterous events!

I was, therefore, not surprised to find this note taped to my office door yesterday:

What is Chris Buddle doing?

This was a slightly modified version of the form found on PhD comics, here.

There are a few important items to clarify. First, it is VERY true the my ‘actual lab work’ has been nonexistent for TOO long. I am a bit sad about this, and perhaps I can get back to the microscope after the term is over…I sure hope so. Second, I must also agree that my students often find me rather lost and confused. I’m not sure how to explain that. Maybe it’s normal??? Third, you will notice two additions at the bottom. Yes, it is true that if any food (e.g., salty snacks, candy) happens to be in the lab, I ‘wander’ through with higher frequency. And yes, the lab is a very convenient shortcut (although, the ‘shortcut’ does provide me time to spy on my students and make sure the youtube:work ratio remains appropriate). Sometimes when I enter the lab, the conversation stops rather abruptly. Should I be concerned about this?

Overall, I am impressed: my graduate students are observant and this is a very good quality.

Retaliation? I think I will work on a “graduate student sightings” form. Hmmm - on second thought, that form may not be as much fun, because my graduate students always seem to be hunched over a microscope, or computer, working away. They are a productive group of students. This makes me happy - my graduate students work hard AND can have a lot of fun. I think that is an ideal work environment.

40,000 beetles and a PhD

/ Chris Buddle / 3 Comments

Last Friday, my Ph.D. student, Alida Mercado Cárdenas successfully defended her Ph.D. Congratulations, Alida! This is a really big event, and the entire laboratory is so proud of Alida.

Alida’s thesis is titled “Ecology of beetle assemblages in a Panamanian tropical forest with taxonomic notes on Curculionidae and Histeridae“. Yes, it is about beetles in the neotropics. Here are some numbers from her thesis:

40,000 beetles, 73 Families, 355 species or Curculionidae, 112 species of Histeridae. In case you weren’t already convinced, the tropics represent the heart of biodiversity science. …so many beetles, so little time. Alida, quite literally, looked at almost 40,000 beetles. This is stunning, and astounding. Here’s a photo of her with a small sample of these beetles, and she’s still smiling!!

Alida with a few of her beetles.

Alida’s thesis is ambitious, fascinating and contains some important conclusions: a) from the beetle’s perspective it matters whether a rainforest is next to shade-grown coffee compared to a pasture, b) beetle assemblages are unbelievably variable in the neotropics - in fact, she often discovered as much variation between her traps within 100’s of meters of each other as between different locations, c) seasonality (i.e., rainy/dry seasons) influences beetle communities, and d) there are a lot of species still to be described - for example, of the 355 weevil species that Alida identified, less than half of these have a name. To help with this significant taxonomic impediment, Alida collaborated with a beetle taxonomist (Alexey K. Tishechkin) and described three new species of Histeridae. This is a wonderful part of her thesis, and showed that it is possible to combine different disciplines - in this case, ecology and taxonomy.

We often hear that ecology and taxonomy are disciplines that fit well together, and I’m reminded of Nicholas Gotelli’s excellent 2004 paper, titled “A taxonomic wish-list for community ecology” (published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of London B). Here’s a quote from that paper (downloadable from here):

…The best research comes from collaborations between taxonomic specialists and community ecologists who can bring both fresh ideas and fresh analyses to the table, and take advan-tage of the wealth of information that resides in museum and herbarium collections…

It’s one thing to collaborate, but something entirely different to be able to do both. I would argue that relatively few scientists work effectively (and publish) in both fields - I have tried to do this a little bit, and worked for a couple of years on the taxonomy of pseudoscorpions. I have, however, never really been able to fully immerse myself in taxonomic research, and I have yet to describe a species. Alida has clearly succeeded where I have failed. That’s inspirational, as is Panama:

Panama

The”official” defense that happened last week represents the end point of a long, productive, and lovely time with Alida being associated with the arthropod ecology laboratory. I began at McGill in September 2002, and Alida came to do her MSc just a year after I started. Her Master’s was about Carabidae (ground beetle) assemblages at and near the Morgan Arboretum, and she published two fine papers from this work - one about introduced Carabidae and another about successional patterns . After her MSc, Alida successfully entered McGill’s NEO program, and begin her PhD on beetles of the neotropics, with Dr. Hector Barrios as a co-supervisor. The rest is a successful story of beetles, beetles and more beetles.

Alida is kind, caring, intelligent, motivated, and a very talented academic. I am pleased (and proud) that she is officially finished at McGill, but I will also miss her. Congratulations, Alida, and good luck with your next adventure!

And to finish, here’s a photo of a weevil (an unnamed one):

An unknown weevil, from Panama (photo by C. Buddle)

Salticus scenicus: a fashionable urban spider

/ Chris Buddle / 21 Comments

Welcome, SPRING, and nice to see you! It’s a good time for arthropods, and a suitable day to post about a favourite species of mine.

I was inspired to write this post for a couple of reasons. First, the warm weather is upon us, and with that comes the arthropods! This past weekend I observed many flies out and about, and bees were busy on early spring ephemerals. I also watched some lovely spiders becoming more active, including the “Zebra spider“, Salticus scenicus (Araneae: Salticidae). Second, last week Alex Wild posted a terrific photograph of this darling of a species:

The Zebra Spider, Salticus scenicus, (C) Alex Wild

Salticus scenicus is aptly named the Zebra spider given its fashionable black and white “striped” colouration (more like chevrons, but close enough?). I think, however, that its common name could also be the “window spider” to describe one of its very common habitats (this is where I have frequently watched this species). The Zebra spider is quite small (< 1 cm in body length), but their personalities are large! In latin, “scenicus” means actor or player, which is appropriate, as this jumping spider is extremely entertaining to watch. As is the case with most other species of jumping spiders, it has incredible vision (for an arthropod) and uses this visual acuity to seek and align with its prey (from an impressive distance), dart, dance, and, of course, jump. It feeds on other arthropods, and seems particularly fond of flies (Diptera), and they are often reported to take down mosquitoes much larger than themselves.

Jumping spiders are very well known for their complicated and fascinating courtship behaviours - many of you have likely seen some examples of these on youtube (e.g., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gOiujoR-5o - sound and motion!). Although I couldn’t find a courtship video of the Zebra spider on youtube, I did come across this rather entertaining video that does nicely show many of the personalities of the species (with a bonus of having some interesting accompanying music…):

Salticus scenicus is most commonly associated with buildings, and is often seen inside during the colder months. As the weather warms, Zebra spiders move outdoors, and I have often watched this species move around on exterior walls, especially those with south-facing, full-sun exposure. In my experience it’s rare to find the species other than in proximity to human settlements. It’s an ‘urban’ spider, and one with some good fashion sense. Salticus scenicus is holarctic in its current distribution, known throughout Europe and North America. It is often assumed that the species is native to Europe and “invaded” North America, although I have been unable to track down strong evidence to support this claim (can anyone help?). Salticus scenicus was originally described by Clerck in 1757 (as Araneus scenicus) and in 1758 Linnaeus described it as Aranea scenica. Norm Platnick’s wonderful world spider catalog can give you the full “evolution” of its current name (by the way, it is also the type species for the genus Salticus)

Please keep an eye out for this species! McGill’s spider collection currently has only two specimens (an immature specimen from Edmonton, and a mature male collected from my house, just off the island of Montreal). I’m thinking it would be fun to set up an interactive site about this species, and it would be good to get its full distribution in North America all mapped out (the Encyclopedia of life entry for the species does have a map, but the data for NA are quite patchy). Drop me a line if you find yourself mesmerized by this little beast.

Some Salticidae Links:

Salticidae of the World (Jerzy Proszynski): http://salticidae.org/salticid/main.htm

Wayne Maddison’s Salticidae page: http://salticidae.org/wpm/home.html

Why scientists excel at outreach activities

/ Chris Buddle / 4 Comments

Nalini Nadkarni visited McGill University, and my laboratory, last week. This event was hosted by the McGill School of Environment (their annual public lecture). Nalini Nadkarni is a superb canopy biologist, and I’ve known about her research for a long time. She has also done a TED talk (wow!). Her visit was a delight - and I was honoured to be able to introduce her public lecture and have dinner with her and a few other guests. Here’s a photo to prove it!

Nalini Nadkarni & Chris Buddle

I learned a great deal from Nalini Nadkarni - she is one of those amazing people who is able to “do more” and this is inspiring. She has her scientific credentials, but is also able to take her scientific expertise to non-traditional audiences (e.g., prisoners, church-goers, inner-city kids, musicians, artists). This is what defines scientific outreach.

Nalini Nadkarni leads by example, and the message is clear: Scientists should do outreach activities (it might be argued that scientists have a responsibility to do more outreach). This is a significant challenge, in part because academic structures do not typically reward such activities - the world of academia often focuses on research productivity (i.e., publications!). However, there are ways to do outreach, and just because academic structures may not be conducive to outreach activities, it’s still an important activity, as The Bug Geek blogs about in this excellent post: http://thebuggeek.com/2012/03/12/science-outreach-may-not-be-a-useful-currency-for-grad-students-but-we-should-do-it-anyway/.

I wish to focus on something a little different here - more specifically about some characteristics of scientists that place them in a particularly strong position to do effective outreach. These ideas are in part drawn from Nalini Nadkarni’s lecture and on discussions with her, but are also some of my own opinions and ideas (and, as usual, I’m biased by my experiences in the disciplines of ecology, entomology, and biology).

1. Scientists have specialized, interesting expertise. Most of the scientists that I know have very specialized, and fascinating knowledge at their fingertips, honed and developed over years of experience. I would also argue that many scientists don’t realize that their expertise is interesting to a non-traditional audience. For example, I never felt that anyone would really care about the generalized life cycle of an orb-web spider, but I have found that most general audiences are hungry for specialized (aka WEIRD!) knowledge from an ‘expert’ in a particular area.

2. Scientists have credentials. Most working scientists have gone through some rigorous training to get to where they are. It may not necessarily be a MSc or PhD, but more than likely, scientists have a minimum of a B.Sc. degree - this qualifies as advanced training - and with this kind of degree comes credibility. This is a huge payoff from a University education. (by the way, with outreach activities, nobody cares about your transcript, so it’s one place where it doesn’t matter if you barely passed physics - yes, this example is something I have direct experience with)

3. Scientists are critical thinkers (and sceptics). This may seem odd in this list, but a healthy dose of scepticism is important for outreach activities. Most outreach activities, regardless of the audience, will end up with the ‘scientist’ being asked for opinions on various topics that are circulating in the media and on-line. Thankfully, most scientists are trained to be critical thinkers. As we know there is a lot of mis-information out there, and a critical thinker is in a strong position to drill down to the right topics and correct facts.

4. Scientists are communicators. Scientists are typically good communicators in one form or another. In the world of science, your work is only as strong as your ability to communicate it effectively, whether it be for a grant application, scientific publication, teaching, or an oral presentation for a job interview. Communication skills are continually honed during the career of a scientists, and these skills are perfectly suited for outreach. Although the audience is different, the fundamentals remain the same.

5. Scientists are passionate. Scientists are naturally curious, and often continue to have a child-like enthusiasm for their chosen specialty. Passion is not a trainable skill. It’s not something to learn from reading. Passion comes from deep within, and is a wonderful gift to be shared, and it is perfectly suited to outreach activities.

Are you now convinced to search out opportunities to do some outreach activities? How to proceed?

Nalini Nadkarni argues that outreach opportunities are everywhere, whether it’s talking to the person next to you on an airplane, writing a blog post, or delivering a talk about insects to a garden club. Even the small, seemingly insignificant outreach opportunities can change perspectives, and inspire others, and do a lot of good. Just have a look at the sustainable prisons project that resulted from Nalini Nadkarni’s outreach activities with prisons (which started as a small, albeit clever, idea): http://blogs.evergreen.edu/sustainableprisons/. Find a little time to take advantage of these opportunities. Outreach does not need to be time consuming, or stressful. Look at it as an enjoyable and rewarding way to bring your science to more people.

By the way, Nalini Nadkarni’s public lecture was tremendous, and thankfully, was live-tweeted, avaiable on Storify: http://storify.com/GeekInQuestion/nalini-nadkarni-talk-at-mcgill-university. (thanks to The Bug Geek for doing this!)

To finish, my laboratory benefited from our interactions with a generous, well-spoken, intelligent and inspirational scientist. Thanks to Nalini Nadkarni for spending time with us.

Our laboratory, visiting with Nalini Nadkarni. (l to r, Chris, Sarah, Crystal, Katie, Nalini, Laura, Dorothy, Raphael)

On Ants and Elephants: Clash of the titans

/ Chris Buddle / 1 Comment

Now and then you come across a research paper that changes your perspective, and offers you a view into ecological interactions that, at first glance, seem unbelievable. Such was the case last week in my graduate class in Forest Entomology. One of the students led a discussion of a paper titled “Defensive plant-ants stabilize megaherbivore-driven landscape change in an African savanna”. It’s an elegant paper about the interactions between elephants, ants and trees. It was published in Current Biology in 2010.

This is a plate from the paper showing a "grazed" tree

This is not a particularly new story - it was actually discussed on a number of blogs quite a while ago:

Here: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2010/09/03/wee-ants-protect-african-savanna-trees-from-elephants/ …by the way, that journalist failed to spell the primary author’s name correctly. Unacceptable…

…here, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100902121053.htm

And Conservation Magazine did a write-up on the research:

Here’s a quote from that article: “Pitting ants against elephants doesn’t seem like a fair fight. But according to a study in Current Biology, these humble insects can act as mighty “bodyguards” that prevent elephants from munching trees on the African savanna”

The take-home message from the research is something like this:

Elephants suppress tree cover in the Savanna, and their intense feeding behaviour can alter the landscape composition of trees. However, some species of trees, on some soil types, have symbiotic relationships with ants (genera Crematogaster and Tetraponera). Though a series of well-designed experiments (i.e., manipulative and observational), the authors (Jacob Goheen and Todd Palmer) show that the ants are able to effectively defend some trees from these mega-herbivores and thus are indirectly affecting the tree composition at a landscape scale. It’s a story of ants, elephants, and the Savanna landscape.

For a visual, here’s a nice photo of Crematogaster ants from Florida (thanks to Alex Wild for permission to post his image here)

Crematogaster ants (C) Alex Wild

So, what makes it worth revisiting this paper, now, and why is this paper and topic particularly interesting?

Well, two things came up in the discussion last week that have prompted this post.

1) It’s “Clash of the Titans” NOT “David and Goliath”. Some of the aforementioned posts seem to like the whole “little ant takes on those big elephants” angle. I just don’t think that is an appropriate analogy. To be fair, an individual ant is certainly small compared to an elephant (and the authors of the research paper are quoted along these lines), but in terms of overall biomass, ants rule. For example, it is argued that ants make up 15-20% of terrestrial animal biomass! Furthermore, globally, I would argue that ants play a much more important functional role in many ecosystems than most vertebrates (although perhaps a proportionately greater effect in tropical regions). Don’t misunderstand - I love elephants as much as the next person… but they are not the Goliath in that article. In this paper, the Goliath was always the ants, and Goliath wins.

2) Another interesting point came up in our discussion. The story is fascinating, the science is strong, and to the broader community of biologists/ecologists, it was new. However, to the local people that live with and observe these interactions everyday, it’s probably not surprising, nor is it likely anything new. It’s one of those cases of a ‘stunning’ discovery that, when speaking with natural historians, and people that live in proximity of the study area, may not actually be ground-breaking. Let me be clear: I am NOT saying this shouldn’t be published, nor am I criticizing the science of this paper. Instead, I wish to merely point out that there’s a good chance that behind these types of studies are probably a group of people who may find it quite surprising that a bunch of scientists are getting excited about an everyday, common occurrence. This is something to keep in mind as we work to publish our latest, newsworthy results.

Here are some more links:

One of the authors (T. Palmer) for this study writes science blogs for the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/todd-palmer-and-rob-pringle

And if you like ants, go here and browse: http://www.alexanderwild.com/