The 1090th meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club was called to order by club president Sebastián Vélez at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 MCZ 101, 26 Oxford Street at Harvard University. 6 members and 12 guests were in attendance.
The minutes of the 1089th meeting were read. There were no corrections to the minutes.
New business: Announcement: "Explorations in Environmental Imaging" presented by UMass Boston Electronic Field Guide project, will be held on Friday November 4 at the Holiday Inn in Somerville.
Old business: Jonathan Rees gave a brief update on the progress of scanning back issues of Psyche.
The evening's speaker was Jessica Rykken, Postdoctoral Associate, Museum of Comparative Zoology Harvard University. Dr. Rykken spoke about her work on the Boston Harbor Islands All Taxa Biotic Inventory. The project, currently in its first year, is jointly sponsored by Harvard and the National Park Service.
The Boston Harbor Islands (34 total) include many island habitats, including intertidal areas, saltmarsh, meadow, and forested areas. The islands have been shaped by human purposes they have served, grazing and farmland, a poorhouse, a prison, military outposts, schools, and recently a massive sewer treatment facility.
Some of the project's objectives:
Dr. Rykken discussed some of the field methods her team used in their first season, and some preliminary observations. The project will continue for five years.
The meeting adjourned for refreshments and discussion at 8:30 pm
Respectfully submitted,
Andrea Golden, CEC Secretary
The 1091st meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club was called to order by club president Sebastián Vélez at 7:45 pm on Tuesday, November 8, 2005 MCZ 101, 26 Oxford Street at Harvard University. 12 members and 17 guests were in attendance.
The minutes of the 1090th meeting were read. There were no corrections to the minutes.
New business: None
Old business: None
The evening's speaker was Piotr Naskrecki, who presented photos and commentary from his recently published book, The Smaller Majority. Piotr's book is dedicated to documenting the `smaller majority' which he defines as organisms smaller than a human finger. Included in the book are insects and other arthropods as well as small vertebrates. The focus of Piotr's Ent Club talk was organisms of tropical rainforests, many of which are endangered. Through his work Piotr hopes to call attention to the plight of these often amazing animals. Among the animals he described were weevils (most abundant group in the Coleoptera) velvet worms, land crabs, toads, frogs, chamleons and of course katydids including leaf-winged katydids and members of the Mimetica genus.
The meeting adjourned for refreshments and discussion at 8:45 pm
Respectfully submitted,
Andrea Golden, CEC Secretary
The minutes of the 1091st meeting were read. There were no corrections to the minutes.
New business: Piotr Naskrecki offered photos and commentary on a previously unknown relationship between fulgorids, ants, and predaceous snails.
Jonathan Rees demonstrated new searchable pdf's that will be used for the online archive of the CEC journal, Psyche
The evening's speaker was Bruce Archibald of Harvard University discussing his work in a talk entitled Giant Lacewings of the Eocene. Fossil giant lacewings (Neuroptera: Polystoechotidae) are known from early Eocene deposits in the Okanagan Highlands, (British Columbia and Washington) Florissant (Colorado) and in Denmark.
Bruce showed a selection of fossil lacewings (mostly wings, bodies are rarely preserved) and discussed the particulars of certain fossils including a new species of Palaeopsychops which shows a hair patch on the hind wing.
Precise dating of fossils using volcanic ash layers, climatic conditions in the early Eocene and the role of diatom mats in entrapping and preserving specimens were also discussed.
The meeting adjourned for refreshments, including a nice selection of beers, and discussion at 9:00 pm
Respectfully submitted,
Andrea Golden, CEC Secretary
The 1093rd meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club was called to order by club president Sebastián Vélez at 7:40 pm on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 at MCZ 101, 26 Oxford Street at Harvard University. Approximately 14 members and guests were in attendance.
The minutes of the 1092nd meeting were read. There were no corrections to the minutes.
The evening's speaker was David Lohman of Harvard discussing his postdoctoral work in Thailand in a talk entitled "Patterns of Herbivory in a Seasonal Old World Tropical Forest".
Link to David's work in Khao Chong FDP: www.oeb.harvard.edu/rainforest
Edited excerpts from the study as described on the above website follow.
Abstract: Research on the network of forest dynamics plots managed by Center for Tropical Forest Sites has enabled significant progress toward understanding the general principles governing the dynamics of tropical plant communities. We have begun a long-term, spatially explicit study of host plant use by lepidopteran herbivores in the Khao Chong FDP in Trang, Thailand. The first 18 months of this project will assess the diversity, phenology, and food web interconnections of a lepidopteran herbivore guild and their insect parasitoids.
Introduction: With over 160,000 species in 121 families world-wide, the Lepidoptera offer an opportunity for ecological sampling, and comparative studies into the evolution of tropical diversity. Over 99% of caterpillars are herbivorous, and they constitute 95% of all leaf feeders in neotropical communities. Lepidopteran caterpillars usually feed on only one host plant. This may intensify the impacts of herbivory on particular host trees.
David showed photos of the tropical forest being surveyed and the research facilities. Caterpillars are found on a small (3-4% per weekly visit) number of trees in the survey area. Some caterpillars are reared in the lab to facilitate ID's, but rearing the caterpillars has proven difficult, with a current success rate of 18%. Mold seems to be the cause of the high mortality. Molecular sampling might be an easier alternative, caterpillars could be preserved in alcohol for sampling.
The meeting adjourned for refreshments and discussion at 8:30 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Andrea Golden, CEC Secretary
March. Philip Stark spoke. Gary Alpert took minutes.
The 1095th meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club was called to order by club president Sebastián Vélez at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 at MCZ 101, 26 Oxford Street at Harvard University. 16 members and nominees were in attendence.
New Business: Three people were nominated for membership, as
follows:
Zofia Kaliszweska
Luke McKneally
Laila Alawa
Old business:
Six people were nominated for membership in March. They will be voted on at the May meeting
Dino Martins
Matan Shelomi
Susan Weiner
Noah Wilson-Rich
Philip Starks
Whit Farnum
The evening's speaker was Dino Martins, who presented his talk "Phantoms of the Dusk - Hawkmoths In Action!" Dino is currently a graduate student in Naomi Pierce's lab. He has been studying hawkmoth pollination of orchids and other plants in East Africa for the last five years. For his MSc at the University of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa, he worked on the ecology of hawkmoth pollination and their coevolution with orchids.
Abstract of Dino's talk: Hawkmoths (Sphingidae), also known as Sphinx Moths, are well known among students of evolution thanks to Darwin's remarkable prediction that one of them would be the pollinator of the Madagascan orchid Angraecum sesquipedale, with its 18" long spur. Africa, especially Eastern Africa, is rich in hawkmoth-pollinated species. Long-tongued hawkmoths are beautiful examples of co-evolution in the strict sense and they serve as pollinators for many rare and endangered species of plants.
Dino noted that hawkmoths generally are opportunisitic feeders. Long and short tongued species have been observed visiting many types of flowers. Yet among the large number of orchid species to be found in East Africa, hybrid orchids are rarely seen. The pollination strategies of the orchids can be very specific. Pollenaria may be attached to the moth's head, or in one example, pollenaria on long filaments are glued to the moth's eyes. Dino's discussion was illustrated with his beautiful photos.
The meeting adjourned for refreshments and discussion at 8:25 pm
Respectfully submitted,
Andrea Golden, CEC Secretary
The 1096th meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club was called to order by club president Sebastián Vélez at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, May 9, 2006 at MCZ 101, 26 Oxford Street at Harvard University. 10 members and guests were in attendence.
New Business:
Officers for the 2006-2007 year were nominated, as follows:
President - Sebastián Vélez
Vice Pres - Bill Stubblefield
Secretary - Andrea Golden
Treasurer - Jonathan Rees
Executive Officers [Committee] (2): Edward Plekavich and Gary Alpert
Nominations will be voted on at the October meeting.
Old business:
Nine nominatees were voted on and accepted as new members. They are as follows:
Dino Martins
Matan Shelomi
Susan Weiner
Noah Wilson-Rich
Philip Starks
Whit Farnum
Zofia Kaliszweska
Luke McKneally
Laila Alawa
The evening's speaker was CEC president and MCZ graduate student Sebastián Vélez, who presented a talk on his recent work on the consequences of insect eusociality, in a talk entitled: "Eusociality as a key innovation in arthropods." Sebastián began his discussion with a reference to a 2005 PNAS paper, "Eusociality: Origin and consequences" (E. O. Wilson/B. Holldobler), in which the authors argue that eusociality has brought ecological dominance to the ants. Sebastián presented a series of phylogenetic sister-group comparisons to show that once eusociality evolves in a group, that group tends to evolve into more species than its non-eusocial counterparts. Sebastián ended with a discussion on the possible reasons speciation rates are correlated with eusociality.
The meeting adjourned for refreshments and discussion at 8:20 pm
Respectfully submitted,
Andrea Golden, CEC Secretary