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BFS Manager in the NY Times!

Jul 11th, 2011 by

The BFS Manager, Dr. Jennifer Gee, is featured in a New York Times article on web-based “crowd funding” of scientific research.

According to the article, Dr. Gee and her collaborator, Dr. Jennifer Calkins, may have been the first professional scientists to use this approach to underwrite basic research. To raise nearly $5,000 for a pilot study of the Elegant Quail (Callipepla douglasii) they used Kickstarter, a web-based funding platform for creative projects.

In a manner familiar to all National Public Radio listeners, Drs. Gee and Calkins offered premiums to those who pledged money to support their research, such as field-seasoned quail bands for a $10 pledge, a Quail Diaries T-shirt for a $12 pledge, and dinner and discussion with the scientists for a $250 pledge.

A Quail Diaries T-shirt.

In order to obtain any funds from Kickstarter, Drs. Gee and Calkins needed to raise the desired funds within a specified time, since Kickstarter uses “All or Nothing Funding.” According to the site, “a project must reach its funding goal before time runs out or no money changes hands. Why? It protects everyone involved. Creators aren’t expected to develop their project without necessary funds, and it allows anyone to test concepts without risk.”

The two scientists did reach their goal, and the money raised enabled them to buy radio transmitters, receivers, other supplies and equipment, and to travel to Mexico in March to carry out their study. On the Kickstarter site you can see a Quail Diaries video about Drs. Gee and Calkins’ project.

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Eurasian Collared-Dove added to BFS Bird List

Jul 11th, 2011 by

During her regular monthly BFS bird survey on July 4, Prof. Cathy McFadden spotted a new addition to the BFS Bird List – three Eurasian Collared-Doves, Streptopelia decaocto, flying over the HMC property, possibly coming out of the old toad pool area.

Originally native to India, Eurasian Collared-Doves spread into Turkey and the Balkans in the 1600s and expanded across Europe in the 1900s. They were introduced into the Bahamas in the mid-1970s and are now established in the southeastern states. They have been expanding across the U.S., and in the last few years, they’ve have made it into most parts of Southern California. They were first reported in south Claremont earlier this year, and it seemed to be only a matter of time before they made it to BFS. It will be interesting to see if they establish within BFS – they seem to like urban areas.

A Eurasian Collared-Dove in India. Photo by Dr. Lloyd Glenn Ingles © California Academy of Sciences.

Eurasian Collared-Doves are large doves that are a very pale cream color with a black half-collar on the back of the neck. Compared to other doves and pigeons seen at the BFS, they are a much lighter color than the Band-tailed Pigeons and are considerably larger than Mourning Doves.

If you spot any Eurasian Collared-Doves at the BFS, please notify the Manager (Jennifer_Gee@cuc.claremont.edu).

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Aww, aren’t they coot?

Jul 5th, 2011 by

Whether or not you think they’re ‘cute’, they’re definitely ‘coot’! While sampling at pHake Lake, my students and I spotted two sets of American Coot (Fulica americana) chicks. Here are some photos:

One of the mother (or father?) Coots with two chicks.

Two Coot chicks.

A Coot parent feeding the chicks.

According to “All About Birds“, the downy young with their bald red heads are alert and ready to leave the nest within 6 hours of hatching.

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Three new insect families

Apr 20th, 2011 by

Some recent insect photography expeditions have turned up a number of new additions for our BFS Invert List. We have yet to sort through all our photos, but we have so far turned up representatives of three new insect families – Stratiomyidae (Soldier Flies), Chrysopidae (Green Lacewings), and Melyridae (Soft-winged Flower Beetles).

  • Soldier Flies (Stratiomyidae) often superficially resemble wasps. Although the most well-known species is black, others are metallic blue, green, or purple, or have bright black and yellow patterns, like the one we spotted at the BFS – Stratiomys maculosa. Adults often sun on leaves, holding their wings crossed scissorlike across their abdomens:

    A soldier fly, Stratiomys maculosa, on Yerba Santa (Eriodictyon trichocalyx). Photo ©Harsi Parker.

    • Soldier Flies are distributed worldwide, but Stratiomys maculosa is strictly a west coast species found in inland valleys and deserts from British Columbia to Southern California and east to Nevada and Utah. Soldier Fly larval habitat varies depending upon the species, but they are generally decomposers, living in dung, rotten fruit, or other organic matter. The larvae of the Black Soldier Fly, Hermetia illucens, are widely used for composting. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can watch a video of Black Soldier Fly larvae devouring a hamburger or some rainbow trout! (The trout video is highly recommended!)

  • Chrysopidae (Green Lacewings) are familiar to many gardeners. Although some species of the delicate-looking adults are predatory, adult Chrysoperla – the genus spotted at the BFS – feeds on nectar, pollen, or honeydew.

    A green lacewing, Chrysoperla sp., on Phacelia distans. Photo ©Nancy Hamlett.

    The larvae, however, are voracious and are used for biological pest control, especially for aphids. Chrysoperla is common throughout North America.

  • The larvae of Melyridae (Soft-winged Flower Beetles) are also predatory. Adults of many species are also predaceous, feeding on other insects on flowers, although some adults feed on pollen. They are considered important natural enemies of some agricultural insect pests.

    A soft-winged flower beetle, Malachius capillicornis, on Amsinckia. Photo ©Nancy Hamlett.

    Although Melyridae occur throughout North America, Malachius capillicornis, the species spotted at the BFS, has only been reported from Southern California and Arizona.

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Talking Trash

Mar 29th, 2011 by

Last Sunday, the Students for the BFS pitched in for a trash pickup at the BFS. Unfortunately some areas of the BFS have quite a lot of trash. Before the field station was fenced, some locals dumped trash on the grounds — in fact, I’ve been told that the Claremont Colleges used the area for a dump. People outside the station also throw trash over the fence. And some previous students and researchers have neglected to remove their flags, traps, and other equipment.

Trash on the BFS is not only unsightly, making a poor impression on any visitors, it can harm the animals that live here. Animals that fall into old pitfall traps can’t get out and die. Animals can be cut by broken glass or sharp metal. And plastic trash is particularly problematic. Plastic can degrade to smaller and smaller pieces, but it never completely disappears. The plastic pieces can be ingested by animals, and animals can get entangled in larger pieces of plastic. Here is evidence that at least one BFS coyote ate a plastic bag:

Coyote scat containing a plastic bag. ©Harsi Parker.

For this day’s work the Students for the BFS targeted the area along the College Avenue entrance to the Claremont University Graduate Housing and the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden. They picked up trash on the BFS side of the fence all the way from the Botanic Garden down to Foothill Blvd. And what a lot of trash there was! The students picked up many old beer, wine, and liquor bottles…

Michele Kaufman looks skeptically at an old beer bottle. ©Nancy Hamlett.

Miranda Holeton picks up a wine bottle. ©Nancy Hamlett.

…tons of broken glass, broken chunks of plastic, lots of ancient food and beverage tin cans, aluminum cans, old marker flags and flagging tape, some red plastic cups deployed as pitfall traps, plastic stakes, plastic bags, deflated Mylar balloons, styrofoam peanuts, styrofoam cups, food wrappers, a broken ceramic cup, a vintage Firestone tire (probably from the 1930s or 1940s)…

Lindon Pronto with his haul, including the vintage tire. ©Nancy Hamlett.

…metal objects and pieces of metal, a golf ball, a tennis ball, and a basketball. Altogether the students collected two large garbage cans to overflowing plus the items too large to fit in the cans:

Steve Nagler, who lent his truck to the effort, with the trash haul – two garbage cans full, the tire, a large rusty pipe, and a basketball. ©Nancy Hamlett.

There is still more trash to pick up, and SBFS will be continuing their work days. Any BFS Users who would like to join them can email Lindon Pronto (lindon.pronto@gmail.com) or Michele Kaufman (michele_kaufman12@pitzer.edu) for information.

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Recent additions to the BFS invert list

Mar 27th, 2011 by

We have nine new additions to the BFS invert list:

  1. Dactylopius sp. (Cochineal)
    Our first addition is an insect that any casual observer might notice at the BFS, but it had somehow been overlooked in our list making – Cochineal (Dactylopius sp.) – that white cottony stuff on Opuntia sp. cacti (Prickly-Pear or Indian-Fig):

    Cochineal on Opuntia littoralis near pHake Lake. Photo ©Harsi Parker.

    Dactylopius sp. are the source of the red dyes cochineal and carmine. Although these dyes have largely been replaced by synthetic organics for dyeing cloth, they are still widely used for foods and cosmetics because they are safer for human consumption. Your yogurt, fruit juice, or lipstick may be colored with crushed bugs! According to Snopes.com it takes 70,000 of these insects to make one pound of cochineal dye.

    The Cochineal scale is also the food source for an amazing number of specialized insects. See Ron Hemberger’s fascinating post ‘Explore Cochineal City’ on BugGuide.net to see some of them.

  2. Irbisia californica (a black grass bug)

    Irbisia californica on Phacelia distans in the lower 'Neck'. ©Hartmut Wisch.

    This little bronze plant bug (family Miridae) is considered a grass bug, but at the BFS we’ve seen them on oak leaves, Phacelia, Amsinckia, Marah, and Artemisia californica as well as on grass. Little information on Irbisia californica is available. So far as I can tell, it’s only been documented in southern California. This is the fourth Mirid so far documented at the BFS — you can see photos of all of them here.

  3. Family Chironomidae (Midges)

    A female midge (family Chironomidae) at pHake Lake. The males have plumose antennae. ©Hartmut Wisch.

    Whenever I hear “midges”, I think of the Fellowship of the Ring tromping through the Midgewater Marshes:

    “I am being eaten alive,” cried Pippin. “Midgewater! There are more midges than water!”
    “What do they live on when they can’t get hobbit?” said Sam, scratching his neck.

    The midges in the Lord of the Rings, however, can not have been Chironomidae, which are non-biting. These small flies, which are known in various parts of the US as “sand flies”, “muckleheads”, “muffleheads”, “blind mosquitoes”, or “chizzywinks”, resemble mosquitoes, but lack the elongated mosquito mouth parts. They occur worldwide, including Antarctica and the high Arctic islands. More than 1,000 species are found in North America.

    Polytene chromosomes were first discovered in Chironomidae, and the number, morphology, and banding pattern of the polytene chromosomes are used in systematic studies of this family. Some researchers have also used abnormalities in Chironomidae polytene chromosomes as indicators of heavy metal pollution.

  4. Cream Grasshopper (Cibolacris parviceps)

    A male Cream Grasshopper, Cibolacris parviceps, in the path just west of the entry drive. ©Nancy Hamlett.

    Cibolacris parviceps is a fairly small (2-3 cm) grasshopper of the desert southwest, ranging south from Nevada through Baja California and the Chihuahuan Desert of Mexico. It eats annual forbs and creosote bush.

  5. Melecta sp. (a cuckoo bee)

    A female cuckoo bee, Melecta sp., on the island in pHake Lake. ©Nancy Hamlett.

    This bee was spotted on the island in pHake Lake hanging out on the ground near the entrances to Anthophora pacifica burrows, which makes sense since Melecta is a nest parasite of Anthophora. It lays its eggs in Anthophora burrows, which the Anthophora have provisioned with nectar and pollen and in which they have laid their own eggs. The Melecta larvae hatch more quickly than the Anthophora larvae, and the first Melecta larva to hatch not only pierces the Anthophora egg and drains the contents, but also destroys any other Melecta eggs. It then consumes the nectar and pollen provisions. While most bees have scopa — specialized structures for pollen collection — Melecta does not, as it lets the Anthophora do all the pollen-collecting.

    The Melecta we’ve spotted at the BFS are probably M. separata callura, but we need a specimen or more detailed photographs to confirm the species. If you’re interested in more details, Robin Thorps’s article, Ecology and Behavior of Melecta separata callura (Hymenoptera: Anthophoridae) (Amer. Mid. Nat. 82: 338-345, 1969) is a fascinating read.

  6. Filacus sp. (a sawfly)

    A sawfly, Filacus sp., on Phacelia distans just outside the fence along Foothill Blvd. ©Nancy Hamlett.

    Sawflies are in the order Hymenoptera, along with ants, bees, and wasps. Their name comes from their saw-like ovipositors that they use to cut into plant tissues to deposit their eggs. They differ from other members of this order in having caterpillar-like larvae. There are four species of Filacus in this area, but it’s usually not possible to distinguish them from photographs. The adults visit Phacelia and other flowers, and the larvae of at least one species also feed on Phacelia.

  7. Andrena sp. (a mining bee)

    Andrena sp. on Phacelia distans. ©Nancy Hamlett.

    These little bees (6-7 mm) were seen nectaring on Phacelia distans in the area west of the infirmary, just south of Blaisdell Ave. They may be Andrena palpalis, a Phacelia specialist, but we will probably need a specimen to confirm the ID.

  8. Water Striders, family Gerridae
    Prof. Cathy McFadden spotted water striders in the new toad pond. Water Striders have hairs on the underside of the tarsi that enable them to walk on the water’s surface. We don’t have any photos from the BFS yet, but you can see a bunch here.

  9. Hiltonius pulchrus (a spirobolid millipede)
    We have been puzzled in the past as to whether the large spirobolid millipedes seen at the BFS were Hiltonius pulchrus or Tylobolus claremontus. Subsequently Prof. Jonathan Wright definitively identified T. claremontus at the BFS, but now this spring’s Pomona Biology 41E class pit-trapped H. pulchrus. So we have both species at the BFS! Unfortunately, we cannot tell which of the two are pictured in our current photos, but we hope to get photos showing the defining characteristics soon.

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Welcome our new Interim Manager!

Mar 10th, 2011 by

We are very excited to announce that we have a new Interim Manager for the BFS — Dr. Jennifer Gee.

Dr. Gee banding and measuring a male Gambel's Quail x California Quail hybrid

Dr. Gee is exceptionally well qualified for this position, as you can see from the official CUC News Release. She is an evolutionary biologist and field ecologist, who did her Ph.D. work with Dr. Rosemary Grant at Princeton and subsequently held postdoctoral positions at Cornell and Harvard. Jennifer spent her postdoctoral training primarily conducting experiments aimed at understanding the neural mechanisms of mating behavior of quail. She then spent several years in the laboratory using molecular, cellular, and developmental genetics approaches to study the precise mechanisms of cranial skeletal differentiation, namely, in the beak of finches.

Most recently, she’s been a Visiting Assistant Professor at Whitman College, teaching a variety of courses, including Evolutionary Biology, Conservation Biology, and Genetics. Jennifer moved here (in February) to return to her passion, field-based research on hybridizing quail species.

Dr. Gee is currently conducting field research on speciation at UCR’s Boyd Deep Canyon Research Center, studying natural populations of California and Gambel’s Quail that hybridize in that area, and we are lucky that the Interim Manager position fit so well with her current situation. Here you can see some examples of her favorite study organisms:

Here is Dr. Gee on March 9 holding a female Gambel

On the way back to the field station during last week’s massive windstorm (which blew 3 turbines off local windmill farms), Jennifer photographed this male Gambel’s quail with his topknot blowing the wind (the answer is blowing in the wind!!). The day following the massive windstorm, the quail were foraging with great enthusiasm, and she caught over 20 quail in her seed-baited traps!

A male Gambel

Dr. Gee has jumped right into things at the BFS. Here she is at the GPS workshop last Friday:

Dr. Gee (left) and a fellow workshop participant learn the ins and outs of the snazzy new GPS units.

If you would like to learn more about Dr. Gee and her research on quail, please come the her presentation at HMC on Wednesdsay, March 30, at 4:15 pm in Galileo-Pryne.

Dr. Gee will be at the BFS 2-3 days per week — usually Wednesday, Thursday, and part of Tuesday or Friday. On the other days, she’ll be at Deep Canyon. She is looking forward to sharing her enthusiasm for and experience with field research with the students and faculty here, and she welcomes you to contact her. So stop by and say “Hi!”, email her at jennifer_gee@cuc.claremont.edu, or phone her at the BFS at 909-398-1751.

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A late winter storm

Mar 5th, 2011 by

A unusual late winter storm and cold front swooped into Southern California last Saturday. Although forecasters predicted that snow might fall as low as 1,000 feet, no snow fell at the BFS. We did, however, get some nice wintry photos:

Storm clouds on Saturday

The sun peaks through the storm clouds on Saturday.

Frost just west of the entry drive

Frost covers the field just west of the entry drive on Sunday morning.

California Sagebrush (Artemisia californica).

Golden Currant (Ribes aureum.)

A dead buckwheat stem.

Red Brome (Bromus madritensis ssp. rubens).

Hoar on Horehound (Marrubium vulgare).

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Two new tiny inverts

Jan 28th, 2011 by

We’ve added two new tiny cuties (at least we think they’re cute!) to our BFS Invert List. Harsi Parker and I spotted these at the BFS on January 16. (To be truthful, Harsi did all the spotting, photographing, and identifying. I held things for photographs.)

We found the first in a Coast Live Oak along the entry drive – a little multicolored, iridescent plant bug (Family Miridae), Paraproba hamata:

Paraproba hamata on the underside of an oak leaf. Photo by Harsi Parker.

The 4-mm long P. hamata occurs along the west coast from Southern California to British Columbia, where Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia) is its primary host plant. Although this species was described by Van Duzee in 1912, I could not find a single paper on its biology.

Our second find was crawling on a piece of dead wood on the south shore of pHake Lake – a tiny jumping spider (Family Salticidae), Habronattus pyrrithrix:

Habronattus pyrrithrix on a piece of dead wood. Photo by Harsi Parker.

H. pyrrithrix is also tiny – only 5–6 mm. It’s found in Southern California, Arizona, and northwestern Mexico. While females are inconspicuously colored, males – like this one – display brilliant red faces, green legs, and white pedipalps during courtship. A recent study (Taylor et al. 2010) showed that the intensity of the red face color correlates with with good body condition, while brighter green legs correlate with poorer body condition. Our spider’s bright red face and relatively pale green legs indicate it would be good catch for any female H. pyrrithrix in the vicinity!

References:

  • Van Duzee, E. P., 1912. Hemipterological gleanings. Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences 10: 477-512.
  • Taylor, L.A., D.L. Clark, and K. J. McGraw. 2010. Condition dependence of male display coloration in a jumping spider (Habronattus pyrrithrix). Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, published online 22 December 2010. [abstract]

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Peregrine Falcon added to BFS Bird List

Jan 17th, 2011 by

Prof. Cathy McFadden and Paul Clarke recorded a new species at BFS this morning. They spotted “a Peregrine Falcon rapidly leaving the east field with a California Towhee in its talons and a very upset Cooper’s Hawk hot on its tail!”

The Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) was previously on both the Federal and California Endangered Species lists. Pesticides, particularly DDT, caused thin-shelled eggs, which were easily broken, so few eggs hatched successfully. After DDT was banned, Peregrine populations recovered, and the Peregrine was de-listed. The recovery effort was aided by extensive captive breeding of Peregrines – an endeavor that was aided by falconers, who have hunted with Peregrine Falcons for more than 3,000 years and have developed methods for handling captive falcons.

Peregrines were highly sought-after by falconers because of their ability to dive at high speeds – they reportedly can attain speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour in a stoop (dive) as they attack their prey. The National Geographic video below shows a Peregrine’s speed being measured at over 180 mph.

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