Santa came early this year...

Last weekend, my brother-in-law, Nathan, talked me into entering a cyclocross race with him.  For those of you who don't know what cyclocross is, it's kind of like steeplechase on bike.  A rider is required to make sharp turns over different types of terrain, and even pick up their bikes and jump over barriers from time to time.  Here is a video about it...

Van Dessel was there offering demos of their bikes, and although I hadn't been riding for a long time, I decided that I would go, demo a bike, and participate in a "first-timers" race that they had.  It was a brisk morning and, fortunately, I was able to borrow some "cold gear" to race in.  First, we had a short introduction to cross by some of the race organizers that included instruction on how to effectively navigate the barriers and turns and a short run-through the course.  After that, we had a race.  I had a lot of fun.  Christine and my little bro, Jeff, came to cheer me on.  Here are a couple of pictures that Jeff took.

I know these pictures don't quite do it justice, but it was awesome.  Soon after this race (the afternoon after, to be exact) I was bike shopping and I found a killer deal on a brand new Fuji Cross bike.  Santa was with me and she, being the best Santa around, got me the bike, here it is below.

I'm in love with the bike.  I've ridden a lot since the purchase.  In fact, I went on two long rides today, one in the morning and one just before dark.  It helps that I live next to the Raritan-Delaware Canal towpath.  It is a path that extends all the way from New Brunswick to Trenton right along the canal.  I can't get enough of it.  This spring or summer I am planning on doing the whole thing to Trenton and back.  It is pictured below.

Phasmatodea

I have been raising a stick insect (Order Phasmatodea) for the last few months and, recently, it molted into what I think is its last instar, or adult stage.  I took it out last night to clean its living quarters and I was inspired to get out my camera and take a few pictures of it.  Phasmids are interesting creatures.  They are an excellent example of the evolution of camouflage.  I left it sitting on some leaves on our kitchen floor and my wife, Christine, walked past and asked nervously, "what happened to your stick insect!?!"  Nothing happened to it, it was sitting on the leaves right where Christine couldn't see it.  I don't know what species this one is or I might be able to write more interesting things about it.  I'm trying to let it live a long life before I am able to identify it (insects generally do not cooperate when placed underneath the microscope alive).  I love the minute details that it has on its body to help make it a successful "stick mimic."  The coloration, little bumps, and grooves make my day.

Of all of the leaves I placed it on, it preferred those that it was closest to in color...

A good view of its mouthparts

This picture is for scale, keeping in mind that I have a big head

E.O. Wilson Part II

Last summer, I wrote about going to Sundance to listen to E.O. Wilson speak on his book On Human Nature.  You can read my thoughts from that experience here.  Recently, I found out that he and botanist, Peter Raven, were being awarded the 2010 Linnaean Legacy Award.  I was excited to find out that they would be awarded at the New York Academy of Sciences in the city and that both would deliver lectures afterward.  Wilson’s talk is entitled, “Exploring a Little Known World in Order to Save It” and Raven will be talking on “Which Gaps Can We Fill, What Can We Save?”

I’m really exited about both of these topics.  It is certainly appropriate for the International Year of Biodiversity.  I am also excited to attend because the biodiversity issues explained so articulately in Wilson’s The Diversity of Life are a big portion of my motivation for pursuing scientific research and, more particularly, systematics and taxonomy.  Wilson contends that we have only discovered 10% of the species existing on the planet.  This brings up serious conservation issues.  How are we to know which areas to work the hardest to conserve if we don’t even know what species exist?

The notes about the conference outlined that Dr. Wilson will speak about a 50 year plan to name the species of the world.  I am anxious to hear his thoughts.  The 10^th edition of Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae, which marked the beginning of modern taxonomy (applying latin binomials to each distinct species), was published in 1758.  In the 252 years since, there have been almost 2 million species named.  If the more modest projections of total species are correct (~10 million), and we continue at the rate which we have been describing species, it would take us several hundred more years to accomplish this task.  What is worse is that many insect taxonomists are retiring and the expertise they gained from a lifetime of study will disappear.  Many say that we need to train more taxonomists.  I believe that is true, but as a graduate student interested in taxonomy that is also interested in a job in the future, I cannot devote my entire time to taxonomy.  If we want more taxonomists we need to create more jobs for them.  I am anxious to hear how he addresses these issues.

The Rally to Restore Sanity!

I'm going to this.  We're going to make t-shirts.

The Garden State

Changes have happened in my life recently.  I moved across the country and started a new graduate program at a new school.  Christine and I have been planning this move for several months and when the time finally came to empty our attic (that we lived in) and fill up 8 feet of a semi-truck, it was both nerve-racking and exciting.  We had the privilege of being accompanied on our cross-country journey by my sister, Valerie, and her family.  This made the trip much more tolerable and despite the discomfort in my stomach that felt like boulders smashing and grinding together over and over, we made it.

As we crossed the border from Pennsylvania to New Jersey, I noticed a van pulled off to the side of the freeway next to which was a sentinel of New Jerseyan twins emptying their bladders of urea, chloride, and sodium.  Notwithstanding this strange welcome to the Garden State, my time here so far has been happy and productive.  Within the first week, we ventured out to some beautiful parts of New Jersey including the beach, Tillman’s Ravine (near the Delaware Water Gap), and Allaire State Park.  I am really impressed with how beautiful it is in parts of New Jersey.  Christine loves the beach and I am sure that we are going to spend a lot of time in the sun during our summers here.  We also spent a couple of days this week in the Poconos in Pennsylvania.  I feel that we went at just the right time.  The trees had just changed color and the hills were on fire.  I love the crisp, cool air of autumn.

Rutgers has been a great place to be so far.  The classes that I am taking are interesting and useful and I have appreciated getting to know the other graduate students and some of the faculty.  I have been able to get a start on some of my research.  I am really excited about what I am doing and I couldn’t be happier with the situation I came into.  We have a ton of possibilities and all of the resources to accomplish them.  So…if you are ever in New Jersey, come and visit us.

Here are some pictures reposted from Christine's blog, and although this post is about New Jersey, I have no photos that were actually taken in New Jersey...

Not only did we see the Late Show live, but Jon Stewart was the guest...my lucky day (looking forward to the Rally to Restore Sanity).

The lovely Christine at Bushkill Falls

Beautiful Pennsylvania country roads

The International Year of Biodiversity

One of the driving forces behind my decision to study the evolution of insects is the biodiversity crisis.  This is why I am excited that 2010 has been dubbed the International Year of Biodiversity.  We are losing species faster than we describe them¹.  This poses a threat not only to the ecology of the earth but also the economy.  For example, the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity website tells us that, “A network of marine protected areas, with the aim of conserving 20%-30% of the seas and oceans, could cost between $5bn and $19bn, but help to safeguard $70bn to $80bn worth of fish catches, and the provision of marine ecosystem services valued at $4.5 to $6.7 trillion annually.”  The Biosphere 2 experiment in Arizona, in which engineers attempted to create a small independently functioning biome, took millions of dollars and ultimately didn’t work. This was a prime example of humankind’s techno-arrogance.  We found that we cannot recreate the Earth’s wonders.  We get billions of dollars of services scotch free from the ecosystems we inhabit.  The biodiversity website also explains that, “The national parks of Canada store 4.43 gigatonnes (billion metric tonnes) of carbon, a service worth between $11bn and $2.2 trillion depending on the price of carbon in the market. The protected areas of Mexico store 2.45 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent – more than five years of Mexico’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2004, and valued at $12.2 billion.”  We get services from the natural world that we just can’t replicate.  The website also lists several other services that we glean from our living surroundings:

·      Provision of food, fuel and fibre

·      Provision of shelter and building materials

·      Purification of air and water

·      Detoxification and decomposition of wastes

·      Stabilization and moderation of the Earth's climate

·      Moderation of floods, droughts, temperature extremes and the forces of wind

·      Generation and renewal of soil fertility, including nutrient cycling

·      Pollination of plants, including many crops

·      Control of pests and diseases

·      Maintenance of genetic resources as key inputs to crop varieties and livestock breeds, medicines, and other products

·      Cultural and aesthetic benefits

·      Ability to adapt to change

Raphidiidae caught from a recent collecting trip in Nevada

Right now there are around 2 million species described with estimates of total species existing between 3 and 100 million.  Over a million of these described are insects.  They make up over 90% of known animal species.  They are, as E. O. Wilson describes, “the little creatures that run the world.”  Within Trichoptera, the group I will be studying in graduate school, there are hundreds of new species that have been collected that are just in need of description.  How are we to protect the biodiversity of the earth if we are unaware of the animals that inhabit it?  Discovering and cataloguing biodiversity will likely be part of my studies on Trichoptera.

So, since the 4^th of July is over and the next federal holiday doesn’t take place until Labor Day in September, take time to celebrate the Earth’s biodiversity by spending some time in it.  The summer is a perfect time to do it.

1. Wilson, Edward O. 1999. The Diversity of Life. 2nd ed. W. W. Norton & Company, May.

NABS 2010

I have been meaning to write about my recent trip to Santa Fe since the trip ended, but due to other great trips, I haven’t been able to write down my thoughts until now.  I am currently writing this from Portland, OR where I am attending Evolution 2010.  It has been an excellent meeting and I will no doubt record my experiences from this meeting in the future. (I’m now home and posting so I could add pictures)

Santa Fe was an interesting town.  I couldn’t decide if I liked it or if I hated it.  There must have been some city code to cover all of the buildings in town with a façade of light brown adobe.  Every building, including the McDonald’s and IHOP, were adorned in this fashion.  The area surrounding Santa Fe was decidedly less “deserty” than I imagined.  There were very nice forested areas with beautiful streams and high mountains.  Santa Fe itself is very high in elevation at over 7,000 feet.  This meant that is wasn’t as blasted hot as I expected and it actually turned out to be quite comfortable.  There is a central portion of the town known as the Plaza.  Apparently, it is faux pas to refer to it as “the park” because I as I passed a young teenager telling his friend to meet him in the park, an old Santa Fe-er, eavesdropping on the adolescent’s phone conversation (as was I), stopped him and said, “If you tell him the park, he won’t know where you are…it’s the pla-za, the pla-za.”  For the rest of the trip, I called it the park.  I’ve written too much about the city.

The meetings were interesting.  For those of you who have never been to a professional biological science meeting, my experience so far has suggested that the formal dress code is a Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, and your favorite type of “adventure sandals”.  This is just fine with me and I followed the code (besides the Hawaiian shirt.  I don’t have one of those).  The convention center in Santa Fe is unaccustomed to meetings as large as these so they were scattered out in different museums and churches.  This was particularly frustrating when I wanted to catch back-to-back talks in different sessions but was unable due to the fifteen-minute walk between venues.  I am most interested in evolution, taxonomy, and systematics.  In 2008 when I attended NABS, I attended those sessions and I was pleased with the things I heard.  This year they threw the systematics and taxonomy oral session(s) to the wolves like some naked sheep and placed them into the poster section.  In some ways I can understand their motive as systematics talks are often less interesting than ecology, but I was, nonetheless, disappointed.

Right when I was ready to spew the contents of multiple nutrient-chain and dispersal talks out of the brain in my mouth, onto the adobe-adorned cityscape, I was able to take a break and go collecting with two of my mentors, Riley Nelson and Jon Gelhaus.  It was a good break (twice) and we visited some really nice areas surrounding Santa Fe.

I presented the poster that I posted previously.  I was set up next to some friends from my Mongolia trip so that was fun.  Presenting posters can be sometimes awkward as people just walk by and stare at you and your poster without asking any questions.  I did have a few that wanted to chat and I received some good feedback.  One of the best parts of the meeting was being able to see the people that I met in Mongolia.  It was cool to go the special Mongolian session and get a taste of all of the hard work that is going on there.  The group I went with last year is there right now and I would have to say that I miss it.

I don’t know the next time that I am going to go to a NABS meeting, however, overall the experience was enjoyable.