The 1014th meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club was called to order by President Dave Wagner on Tuesday, October 10, 1995 at 7:35 PM in the Main Lecture Hall of the Harvard Biolabs. __ members, guests, and visitors signed our attendance book.
The minutes of the May 1995 meeting were read by the secretary, and approved without correction. By popular request, the nomination poem from the previous meeting was reread, and met with general approval. There was no old business.
Under new business, there were 5 new nominations for Club membership:
Frances Garretson of Brant Rock, MA, interested in aquatic insects; Stanton Kessler or Wellesly, MA, interested in forensic entomology; Ernest Ruber of Northeastern University, interested in salt marsh ecology and mosquitos; Dave Lubertazzi of Missoula, MT, interested in ants; and Luis Chong of Taipei, Taiwan, interested in Coleoptera and Hymenoptera.
In addition, a new comittee was proposed, whose purpose would be to explore ideas for additional club activities. Mike Huben volunteered to organize the comittee, and called for volunteers to contact him after the meeting.
The speakers for the evening was our very own President Dave Wagner, Vice President Mark Moffett, Carl Rettenmeyer, and Mike Thomas. They each made distinctive and different presentations on their highly individual philosophies and strategies for taking insect photographs.
Dave Wagner optimizes for photographing caterpillars. He prefers fully automated systems with ring or dual flashes so that he can use a slow film with fine grain at a high f-stop. He feels that with this choice of equipment, composition becomes the most important variable in producing a quality picture, and varies his angles and backgrounds accordingly.
Mike Thomas prefers natural light in natural settings in early morning when insects are immobile to create portraits. He displayed a lot of the latest, pricey equipment, including a surprising tripod that would make a contortionist proud. Other strategic necessities for his style included depth of field preview buttons, non-standard focusing screens, exposure calibration tricks, and locking up the mirror and using cable releases to prevent vibrations.
Carl Rettenmeyer prefers economical, high magnification manual systems. Most of his equipment cost a fraction of what the others' did. He recommended an Olympus 20mm macro lense and extension tubes instead of bellows, which he finds too fragile. He displayed some of his amazing pictures of live mites on the tarsi of live (but imobilized) army ants.
Mark Moffatt spoke less of technique and more of philosophy of insect photography. He remarked that most equipment is really good now, and that the most recent improvements don't affect picture quality very much. He presented an excellent explanation for why insect photography is so cool: "You can only make a whale look smaller than life."
After discussion, the meeting was adjourned at 9:15 PM for refreshments.
Respectfully submitted,
Mike Huben, Secretary
It was a dark and stormy night....
The 1015th meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club was called to order by President Dave Wagner, clad only in the sheerest white nightgown, on Tuesday, November 14, 1995 at 7:35 PM in the Main Lecture Hall of the Harvard Biolabs. Only 18 members, guests, and visitors dared brave the elements and signed our attendance book.
The minutes of the October 1995 meeting were read by the secretary, and approved without correction.
Under old business, 5 new members were elected by acclamation:
Frances Garretson of Brant Rock, MA, interested in aquatic insects; Stanton Kessler or Wellesly, MA, interested in forensic entomology; Ernest Ruber of Northeastern University, interested in salt marsh ecology and mosquitos; Dave Lubertazzi of Missoula, MT, interested in ants; and Luis Chong of Taipei, Taiwan, interested in Coleoptera and Hymenoptera.
In addition, a new comittee was created, whose purpose would be to explore ideas for additional club activities. Mike Huben volunteered to organize the comittee, and called for volunteers to contact him after the meeting.
Under new business, President Wagner proposed a pair of identification workshops to be sponsored by the club: one for ants, and the other for odonates.
The speaker for the evening was Mark McPeek of Dartmouth University, who gave a talk titled "Evolution and community structure in damselflies."
Mark described his extensive experimentation to determine the critical factors governing distribution of Enallagma damselflies along a gradient of habitat types ranging from vernal ponds to lake habitats. His transplant experiments using cages established that predation, not competition or physical conditions, seemed to be the major factor. Fish both serve as predators and exclude predators (such as larve of Aeshna, a dragonfly) in habitats with fish. The various species of Enallagma have different behavioral and morphological adaptations for predator response that suit them to fishless or fishy predator habitats.
After discussion, the meeting was adjourned at 8:45 PM for refreshments.
Respectfully submitted,
Mike Huben, Secretary
The 1016th meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club was called to order by President Dave Wagner on Tuesday, December 12, 1995 at 7:40 PM in the Main Lecture Hall of the Harvard Biolabs. 26 members, guests, and visitors signed our attendance book.
The minutes of the November 1995 meeting were read by the secretary, and approved without correction.
Under old business, proposals for identification workshops for Odonates and Ants for critical habitat recognition were repeated.
Under new business, President Wagner announced the cancellation of the January meeting, which was scheduled to be an MCZ Entomology Collection open house, due to elevator repairs.
The speaker for the evening was Dr. Theodore Sargent of the University of Massachussetts, who gave a talk titled "Industrial Melanism In Moths: Reassessing The Evidence."
During a long career of research with underwing moths, which also have melanic morphs, Ted tested many of the assumptions and explanations that were critical to the industrial melanism story.
Ted started by describing his early meetings with Kettlewell, the inventor of the industrial melanism story, and the immediate friction generated.
He then described a few of the more tenuous features of the industrial melanism story, such as the fact that the pictures showing Biston betularia (the Pepper Moth) resting on tree trunks are of dead specimens glued to the background, since the actual natural resting places of the moths is still not known. Actual testing of a variety of species of melanics shows no preference for resting on darker artificial backgrounds. Melanics tend to occur with high frequency in both industrialized and non-industrialized locales. The melanics are darker than any real substrates, and thus overshoot for crypsis: perhaps their coloration could be disruptive instead.
And finally, Kettlewell's results with mark/recapture studies and claimed behavioral differences are essentially unreproduced.
After discussion, the meeting was adjourned at 9:10 PM for refreshments.
Respectfully submitted,
Mike Huben, Secretary
The 1017th meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club was called to order by Vice-President Stefan Cover on Tuesday, February 13, 1996 at 7:50 PM in the Main Lecture Hall of the Harvard Biolabs. ___ members, guests, and visitors signed our attendance book.
The minutes of the December 1995 meeting were read by the secretary, and approved without correction.
There was no old business.
Under new business, Vice-President Cover announced two forthcoming workshops sponsored by the Club:
Saturday, May 11 1996 Ants and Tiger Beetles, at Harvard
Saturday, June 8 1996 Odonata, at the University of Connetticut, Storrs.
Secretary Mike Huben proudly waved his new copy of The Hymenoptera Of Costa Rica, containing his own 5 page contribution (out of 900) on the Evaniidae, and praised the book highly for its well-selected authors. Oh, and the excellent summaries and family specifics of anatomy, distribution, biology, keys, etc.
The speaker for the evening was Dr. Brian Farrell of Harvard University, who gave a talk titled "Diversification at the insect-plant interface". He didn't tell us why insect-plant interface, instead of plant-insect interface, but he told us huge amount about his research aimed at explaining the current patterns of biodiversity.
The talk was too rapid and broadly encompassing to record well, but I did note a couple of interesting facts:
Particularly interesting to me was the coevolution of Cerambycids and host plants, where Brian was able to calibrate his molecular clock with times of habitat divergence.
After discussion, the meeting was adjourned at 9:10 PM for refreshments.
Respectfully submitted,
Mike Huben, Secretary
The 1018th meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club was called to order by President David Wagner on Tuesday, March 12, 1996 at 7:40 PM in the Main Lecture Hall of the Harvard Biolabs. ___ members, guests, and visitors signed our attendance book.
The minutes of the February 1996 meeting were read by the secretary, and approved without correction.
Under old business, the two forthcoming workshops sponsored by the Club were re-announced:
Saturday, May 11 1996 Ants and Tiger Beetles, at Harvard
Saturday, June 8 1996 Odonata, at the University of Connetticut, Storrs.
Under new business, the 1996 Nominations Comittee was appointed by President Wagner, consisting of Stefen Cover, Mike Huben, and Gary Alpert.
The speaker for the evening was Dr. Robert Colwell of the University of Connecticut, who gave a talk titled "Evolution and ecology of host affiliation in hummingbird flower mites".
Roughly 150 species of hummingbird-pollinated plants in 15 families support about 100 species of hummingbird-phoretic mites that breed in the flowers and bracts. The inflorescences of these plants have a brief lifetime, which the mites solve by dispersing on hummingbirds.
The mites are in three genera in the Ascidae: Proctolaelaps, Rhinoseius, and Tropicoseius. The cladogram of the various species groups very well with the families of plants, indicating that host specificity of these mights has been very conservative.
Many of the mite species are monophagous, but others seasonally alternate between as many as 5 host plants. The birds can carry many mite species simultaneously: the mites are careful to disembark on the correct flower species.
The mites seem to compete with the birds for the nectar: experiments show mites consuming roughly half the nectar and 20 to 30% of the pollen.
After discussion, the meeting was adjourned at 8:50 PM for refreshments.
Respectfully submitted,
Mike Huben, Secretary
The 1019th meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club was called to order by President David Wagner on Tuesday, April 9, 1996 at 7:40 PM in the Main Lecture Hall of the Harvard Biolabs. 27 members, guests, and visitors signed our attendance book.
The minutes of the March 1996 meeting were read by the secretary, and approved without correction.
Under old business, the two forthcoming workshops sponsored by the Club were re-announced:
Saturday, May 11 1996 Ants and Tiger Beetles, at Harvard
Saturday, June 8 1996 Odonata, at the University of Connetticut, Storrs.
Under new business, the secretary read the 1996 nominations, provided by Stefen Cover.
The speaker for the evening was Dr. James Liebherr of Cornell University, who gave a talk titled "Endemism, evolution and ecology of a Hawaiian Island Swarm -- the Platynine Carabid beetles."
This tribe of wingless Carabids has colonized and speciated all over the Hawaiian islands. Many of the species are HIGHLY endemic: one is known only from a strip of habitat 50 feet wide and about one mile long. Dr. Liebherr's work has attempted to corellate the speciation of these beetles with the recent geological development of the islands.
After discussion, the meeting was adjourned at 9:00 PM for refreshments.
Respectfully submitted,
Mike Huben, Secretary