Tag Archives: Dorothy Maguire

A walk in the woods

Posted on August 1, 2012 | Leave a comment

Last week I had the opportunity to visit my PhD student Dorothy Maguire at her field sites south of Montreal.  It was a glorious summer day, and given the construction holiday in Quebec, the travel time was quick and effortless (for Montrealers, you know what I am talking about!).  I have briefly described Dorothy’s research in a previous post, and during the field visit, I was able to see Dorothy and her two field assistants ‘in action’.  This included checking samples from an aerial malaise trap, beating the foliage (for herbivores) in the forest canopy, and checking contents of a Lindgren funnel (set up in the canopy to collect flying insects, including beetles).

Thomas and Camille checking the contents of the aerial malaise trap

It was an amazing day for natural history.  In fact, I sometimes think my graduate students cannot stand spending time in the field with me, since I tend to walk slowly, vial in hand, stopping all the time to pick up a spider or beetle, or to turn over a log to search for pseudoscorpions.    I’m probably much more of a burden than a help in the field, and this probably leads to some resentment (ha ha).

Anyway – it was great to get into the forest again after time in the Arctic, and I was thrilled at all the biodiversity starting me in the face.

What did I see?

A dozen or more species of trees, including shagbark hickory, ironwood, and the usual suspects (American beech, sugar maple, red maple, some oaks)

Some stunning underwing moths (Catocala) (although they were somewhat less stunning than usual since they were dead, in a Lindgren funnel!)

The BIGGEST horsefly that I have ever seen (probably Tabanus atratus).  Yikes – I captured it before it bit me – it could have hurt.  A lot.

The big, nasty horse fly (Tabanidae)

Butterflies, butterflies, butterflies!  Including the beautiful great spangled fritillary (Speyeria cybele) and the northern pearly-eyed (Enodia anthedon)- the latter is one of the few shade-loving butterflies in this part of the world

Hundreds of sap beetles (family Nitidulidae) – these were very common in the aerial malaise traps, but were also flying into us much of the day

Some GIANT Scarabaeidae beetles – I don’t know the species but they were robust and impressive; masters of their universe.

Dozens of Harvestmen (Opiliones), which I later identified as Leiobunum aldrichi - I have now started a colony at home (much to my children’s delight).

Female (l) and male (r) Gypsy moth, caught in the act.

Gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar) – a lot of gypsy moth.  This species in an invasive, introduced species.  Gypsy moth caterpillars can feed on hundreds of species of trees, including our beloved Sugar maple.  This is one species that I am not happy about seeing, and its numbers this year are certainly higher than last year.

And to top it all off.. Antlions (Neuroptera: Myrmeleontidae).  Yes, Antlions!!  These are among the most fascinating of the insects -the larvae build conical sand-pits and await ants that happen to slip into the pit and fall down into the waiting predator.  I have lived in the Montreal area for over 10 years and I had no idea that Antlions existed this far north.  Wow.

Quebec Antlion “trap”, photographed just south of Montreal

This is only part of the list, but one thing is clear – a hot, mid-summer day in a Montreal-area forest is full of the wonders of Nature.  I didn’t have to look very far, and I didn’t have to look very hard.  Furthermore, most of what I mentioned was all from a rather small forest fragment surrounded by agricultural lands.   We must study, document, quantify the biodiversity within these forest fragments – they are very special, and they host a diverse and fascinating flora and fauna.

 Take a walk in your local woods, and see what you can find under leaves, bark, climbing up trees and catching a few rays of sun in a small clearing.  It’s a nice way to spend a summer day.

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Posted in Arthropod research, Graduate students, Laboratory News, Natural History

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Professors take the summer off (another myth of Academia….)

Posted on May 10, 2012 | 1 Comment

The academic term is over, and so are my teaching duties (until September).  This is the time of year that I sometimes get asked how I am going to spend my summer off from work.  Many people think that Professors teach University classes and then sit back and relax for four months every summer – Oh, we may wander in to work now and then, do some ‘critical thinking’, muse poetically about society and our place in it, but by in large, the summer is for leisure time, long lunches, vacation, and recovery after that tough eight months of teaching.

                 WRONG! 

For a Professor at a University with a research focus in addition to teaching duties, the summer is for making significant progress on research.  For a field biologist, such as myself, summer is often the busiest time of year.  Studying animals outside (in Northern countries) means that we must cram a lot of work into four short months!  Quite often we also work on grant applications (many of these are due in the early Autumn), and without grants, our research programs will fail.  Yes, the summer offers some flexibility, but it certainly isn’t all leisure – a lot of work must get done and the expectations are high.

Dorothy showing off some excellent “single rope technique” for accessing maple tree canopies

In my laboratory this summer, Dorothy Maguire (who did pass her comprehensive examination successfully – congratulations, Dorothy) will be doing her second summer of field work on her PhD project about the effects of forest fragmentation on hebivory (by insects) in the Montérégie.  This project is done in collaboration with Dr. Elena Bennett’s research team (and Elena is Dorothy’s co-supervisor).  This work is very exciting and novel, in part because Dorothy is putting this work in the context of “ecosystem services“  -i.e., the various services that humans get from ecosystems.  Insects feed on trees, and trees are valuable to humans, so the linkages between insect herbivores and ecosystem services are important to study, especially in the context of fragmented forests of SW Quebec.

We also have a field team heading up to the Yukon Territory to finish some field collections in the context of the Northern Biodiversity Program.  Katie, Crystal, and Laura will be collecting spiders, beetles, parasitoids (& more) along the Dempster Highway (one of the most beautiful places on the planet).

The Dempster Highway, Yukon.

To help us prepare for the summer, we must first clean up our messy lab. As is tradition in the Arthropod Ecology Laboratory, spring cleaning happened this past week.  We put on a brave face, tackle all the dark corners of the laboratory, throw out unlabelled material, clean the desks and discover quite a number of surprises.   A couple of lovely finds this year included an unlabeled 10 lb bag of soil at the bottom of a fridge (yikes!), and a colony of Collembola (springtails) from 2003!! (there was no evidence of life within that jar, yikes again!):

Crystal and Raphael laughing about the ‘unknown’ bag of soil.

Springtime is therefore an exciting time in the lab, and as an Academic at McGill,  it’s an important period of transition from a teaching focus to a research focus.  I certainly do take my official vacation time in the summer, but in addition to that time, the summer months are busy and (hopefully) productive.   Remarkably, I can also find time to use a microscope again  – this is a rare event, as this post describes.  Want proof?  Here you go:

Chris Buddle actually doing laboratory work. Wonders never cease.

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Posted in Academia, Graduate students, Laboratory News, Teaching

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The “Comps”

Posted on January 18, 2012 | 1 Comment

The “comps” or “qualifiers” are a stressful experience for PhD students.  Here is PhD student Dorothy Maguire behind a stack of reading (yikes!):

Dorothy behind some required reading

The comprehensive examination is a process by which PhD candidates defend their research proposal in front of a committee of Professors.  In our Department, this process typically occurs within the first year and a half of a student entering the PhD program.   The format is as follows: the student presents their proposal to the committee, and this is followed by a couple of rounds of questions. The first line of questioning typically focuses on the candidate’s research proposal, and a second round is typically broader in perspective.  Sometimes this can be very broad – from everything from the philosophy of science, to underlying theoretical foundations of a discipline.   Although I try to stress that these exams should be treated as “fun” discussions about science, they remain an intense process for PhD students, and often there is a pretty big sigh of relief when they are over!  I still remember vividly my own comprehensive examination – and that one question that I flubbed still haunts me! (maybe I’ll share my experience in a future blog post)

Are the exams some odd relict of academic institutions and serves no purpose anymore?  Is it an archaic rite of passage that merely reminds PhD candidates that they are still below Professors in the academic hierarchy?  What are the benefits of these exams?

Well – I actually believe the comprehensive examination is an important step in the academic process.  It is very important that PhD students are on a road to success, and the comps helps to ensure this – their examination committee is typically made of experts in their discipline, so they are in the best possible position to judge the quality, scope, novelty and depth of the PhD student’s proposed research.   The exam also helps to ensure there is consistency (e.g., year-to-year, Department-to-Department, Faculty-to-Faculty) in what we call a “PhD” degree.  Some would argue the process can be too variable, but by at least having the exam, with its academic memory, there is a chance of having standards.

I also think the comps help students to think about their work critically, and in the context of their larger field of research.  This exam is often one of the first times we really force students to do this, and these future academics must do this over and over again in their future (e.g., writing papers, grant proposal).   Finally, it is very important that students are able to effectively defend their work.   This process, which also involves a lot of critical self-appraisal, helps to refine a research project and pave the road to success.

PhD student Dorothy Maguire is going to have her comprehensive examinations later this winter.  This means that she is currently editing her proposal, reading a lot of primary literature related to her research area, and I have encouraged her to also spend a little bit of time reading secondary literature – hence the stack of books.

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Posted in Graduate students, Laboratory News

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