Nature 462, 282 (2009). doi:10.1038/462282a

Author: Douglas Erwin

Palaeontologists must model the causes of biodiversity rather than simply cataloguing fossils, says Douglas Erwin, as they curate the only record of ecosystems undamaged by humans.

Nature 462, 280 (2009). doi:10.1038/462280a

Authors: Robert J. Smith, Diogo Veríssimo, Nigel Leader-Williams, Richard M. Cowling & Andrew T. Knight

To save biodiversity, on-the-ground agencies need to set the conservation research agenda, not distant academics and non-governmental organizations, argue Robert J. Smith and colleagues.

Nature 462, 278 (2009). doi:10.1038/462278a

Authors: Will R. Turner, Michael Oppenheimer & David S. Wilcove

Natural ecosystems and biodiversity must be made a bulwark against climate change, not a casualty of it, argue Will R. Turner, Michael Oppenheimer and David S. Wilcove.

Nature 462, 255 (2009). doi:10.1038/462255e

Author: Matt Friedman

A palaeontologist ponders how biodiversity is spread across the vertebrate tree of life.Why do some biological groups burst at the seams with many different species, whereas others, despite their deep evolutionary heritage, contain only a handful of members? Many of my old vertebrate-biology textbooks

Nature 462, 251 (2009). doi:10.1038/462251a

This third special issue in Nature's year-long celebration of Charles Darwin focuses on the dire challenges to Earth's biodiversity — and finds some reason for hope.

Nature 462, 277 (2009). doi:10.1038/462277a

Author: Pavan Sukhdev

The value of biodiversity must be accounted for, says Pavan Sukhdev. It is time for governments to invest to secure the flow of nature's 'public goods'.

The film was produced by the Meerkat Media Collective.

Thanks to Lauren Kotkin for sending me the link!

Ants dominate the small-scale world. We may seldom notice them, but ants affect their ecosystems as much as humans do.

The exhibit is made up primarily of incredible action photos of ants. There’s a nice ant colony a plant specimen and an aluminum cast of an underground Harvester ant colony that was made in Florida.

Sadly, as the reviews have pointed out, the only mention of pathbreaking entomologist Edward O. Wilson’s world is an oil portrait and a case containing his microscope and a sculpture inspired by his work. I thought it was cool to see his microscope, but few other visitors seemed especially excited.

It’s a little bit of a challenge to find the exhibit, it’s upstairs, down a hallway, past the IMAX. We felt a bit like Spinal Tap wandering about the museum looking for it when we first arrived, (”Hello, butterflies!”). We also stopped to watch the bees at work over in the insect zoo.

Here’s the review of the show from the Washington Post. It’s worth a visit, but don’t wait too long - the show closes October 10th.

And while not exactly enjoyable, Antomatic by Rebecca and Eric Gordon calls attention to the plight of the bumble bee. The world is losing the bees pollinate the crops that feed us. This easy-to-miss multimedia installation prompts thought. A good addition to the sensory arcade that makes Artomatic worth multiple visits. Go.

We’re honored to make the cut.

To observe National Pollinator Week, Dr. Michael Ruggiero (senior scientist for the museum’s Integrated Taxonomic Information System) hosts a panel of bumblebee experts to discuss the declining numbers of these important pollinators.

I’m looking forward to this event. National Pollinator Week 2009 is June 22 - June 28.

First up, there’s the always awesome Tina Seamonster. You need to stop what you’re doing immediately and go buy some of her great We Will Miss the Bees goodies. The moleskine notebooks are going to make great solstice stocking stuffers. I’m just saying…

Next, congratulations are in order to Neil Gaiman. He deserves congratulations for the sundry literary awards he’s been racking up lately, certainly, but more importantly for his two blue ribbons from the county fair for the honey his bees have been busy producing.

We (and by we, I mean the Birdchick and Lorraine and Woodsman Hans and the Birdchick’s long-suffering husband Bill and me of course and any of our passing guests who have been persuaded to put on a white bee suit and come and hold the smoker, but most of all the amazing 60,000 bees in the Yellow Hive and the just as amazing 60,000 bees in the Green Hive) took two Blue Ribbons in the county fair, for Extracted Honey and for Comb Honey (a Ross Round). We are, of course, over the moon.

The extracted honey is from the yellow hive, and it tastes of mint and wildflowers. It’s a very light yellow (as is all our honey this time of year). The comb honey is from the green hive. I have no idea what it tastes like, but it looks beautiful.

There are other pictures of his bees throughout his blog. I trust you can find them. That Hugo award (as reported in the Guardian) following the Newbery Medal is darned cool, as well, though, no doubt about it.

Last, let me mention the lovely summer brew we found at our local wine shop. It’s Bison Brewing’s yummy Honey Basil Ale. They have an essay on their site explaining why this is a honey ale and not technically mead. I think mead deserves it’s own post on another day, though, don’t you?

You might remember that last month I threw down the gauntlet to some of the bigger cousins in the interwebs for the DonorsChoose Challenge!

DonorsChoose.org is an online charity that provides an easy way for people to fund projects in schools by donating online. The Challenge is a month-long competition between blogs to see who can bring in the most donations to help low-income classrooms.

I chose schools in high poverty areas that have insect-themed or garden themed projects. A couple of them are in Michigan!

I invited some of my Nature Blog Network Friends to come along, and talked some smack about kicking some A-list blogger asses.

So, how are we doing?

Ah.

Err.

Fashion Blogs and Gawker are beating us into a pulp. This is fairly embarrassing.

Please visit my Giving Page to make a donation. Or, choose another of the NBN blogs to make a donation to! If we can gain additional donors by this weekend, HP will make an additional donation to the NBN blogs!

It doesn’t have to be a lot–the whole idea of DonorsChoose is that lots of people can pool little amounts of money to do big things.

Thanks!

You might remember that I got in trouble in the past for saying what I thought about some cuts to Michigan’s State Budget in early 2009. And that was NOTHING compared to what’s about to happen.

It appears the state of Michigan is about to lead the nation…in dropping all its Extension Service funding. It would become the ONLY state to not have Extension.

For someone who works in Agriculture, this is just…

Apocalyptic.

That’s the only word I can come up with.

This isn’t about just ending consulting services to farmers. Michigan Extension runs the Economic Development Programs for many counties. They run breastfeeding workshops and the state’s supplemental nutrition programs. They train childcare providers.

They do a lot of really important stuff that we need when the state’s employment rate is the highest in the nation.

A few bullet points from an official MSU website:

• Every county, every legislative district, will be affected by the elimination of MAES and MSUE funding. These are outreach programs that make a significant impact on people’s lives. From babies to seniors, urban, suburban or rural, people of all communities will feel the impact.
• 236,000 Michigan youth and 27,000 volunteers would face the elimination of 4-H programming, making Michigan the only state without 4-H youth development programming.
  
• In 2008, MAES and MSUE funds generated a total economic impact for the State of Michigan of $1.062 billion. This would be gone. For every $1 provided by the state, MAES and MSUE generate another $2.33 for research and extension work in Michigan. This income would be lost, with much of it going to other states.

If you have a story to tell about how you have benefited from Michigan Extension, the Michigan Experiment Station System, or other related parts of MSU, please contact your legislators ASAP!

Michigan House of Representatives
Contact your Representative

Michigan Senate
Contact your Senator

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm
Office of the State Budget

Well, Michigan now has a budget, and the Governor did not use her line item veto to completely destroy Extension. That’s the good news.

But. The Extension budget will still be cut 44%, which is a LOT. Part of the problem is that Extension funding is incredibly complex. Between County, State, and Federal inputs, it’s hard to say what the actual final reductions will be. The Ann Arbor Chronicle has some good coverage of how this plays out at the County office level.

The reality is there will be big cuts. In everything.
In fact, most of the big holes in the Michigan budget are backfilled for 6 months by stimulus money. Which means that nothing is actually resolved.

All State Universities and public education systems will also be cut–and the pain slightly deferred for now with Stimulus money. From the Detroit News:

“Michigan State University has proposed eliminating 40 academic programs and shutting two departments in effort to save the university money…..The recommendations called for eliminating two doctoral programs, two education specialist programs, 13 master’s programs, four graduate specializations, 16 undergraduate majors and three undergraduate specializations.”

Now, the loss of the Canadian Studies major…yeah. BFD.
And I don’t think it’s a bad thing (in the abstract) to have some departmental/program consolidation at the bigger schools.
But disbanding the entire MSU geology department? Didn’t see that one coming. And when you know the people involved, it’s a lot harder.

I am happy that there will be time for people to at least try and plan for the big hit that’s going to come in 2010 when the stimulus money goes away. And folks are doing their best to put this on a positive spin, and to see good stuff to come from consolidation.

I have to say, the whole thing reminds me of this Monty Python sketch–with Michigan’s education system as the Black Knight. “Tis but a scratch! Just a flesh wound!”

Sorry to be a downer lately…I’m realizing that I have to go look for a job soon, and it’s rather a bummer. How about a pretty picture? Ursja has uploaded more beautiful beetle photos! OMGSHINY!!

A cool opportunity for teachers!!

WANTED: Up to 20 schools (in the U.S., east of the Rocky Mountains) to follow the development of monarchs on the International Space Station.

Background
The next Space Shuttle launch is scheduled for November 16th. Atlantis will carry three 4th instar monarch caterpillars to the International Space Station (ISS) in a small rearing chamber. This chamber will be placed in an incubator aboard the ISS where the developing monarchs will be monitored. Still and video cameras will continually capture images, which will be made available online.

We have prepared a text that outlines normal development of monarchs from the fourth instar until emergence as adults. This detailed text is written for adults and contains an extensive glossary. It is intended to provide the information teachers need to answer student questions and as a guide to the five major challenges monarchs face in the nearly weightless environment of the International Space Station.

Participation
If you would like your school or classroom to participate, please contact us at monarch[at]ku.edu before 5PM this Friday (November 6th).

Monarch Watch will send a special monarch larva kit to participating schools. The monarch kit costs $17.95 and the overnight shipping will be an additional $26 for a total of $43.95. BioServe Space Technologies will send participating classrooms a kit that includes a rearing chamber (similar to the one going into space) with instructions.

The kit consists of six 3rd instar larvae on artificial diet and additional cups of diet. Three larvae will be loaded into the rearing chamber. One of the cups with diet will be used to fill the feeding trays in the chamber you will receive from BioServe. The other cups of diet can be used to feed the remaining larvae until they are ready to add to the finishing cups. Additional instructions will be provided regarding these points.

If you participate in this program your students will be able to follow the shuttle mission to the space station and the development of the monarchs in space for at least two weeks.

The background materials, additional instructions, and relevant links will be available at www.monarchwatch.org

If you have any questions, please let us know!

Jim Lovett
Monarch Watch
http://monarchwatch.org

Ann Fadiman. At Large and Small: Familiar Essays. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 2007.

Bug Rating:

I freely admit to being an Anne Fadiman fan-girl. Ex Libris is easily one of my favorite books. The Spirit Catches You is an amazing book about culture, epilepsy, immigration, and they way we don’t communicate. So, I was pretty sure I would like this book.

When I got it, I discovered the end papers for the book are from a wonderful collection of vintage insect plates (ca. 1859), which you can now find on Google Books. OMG!
And the very first essay, “Collecting Nature,” is about the joys of collecting insects. Sigh.

We’ve discussed before here at the Bug Blog the issue of insect collections, and the decision to not collect. This is covered in detail in Fadiman’s essay:

“When we were very young, my brother and I could not yet divorce our ardor for butterflies from our desire to flatten them in Riker mounts and hang them on the wall. We threw away our killling jar not because we wished to stop causing pain–crushing an ant or a cockroach, which presumably had a nervous system similar to a tiger swallowtail, stirred few qualms–but because, unlike Alfred Russel Wallace, we grew uneasy with the pleasure it gave us.”

She does confess it was not an easy decision to make:

“I remember a period of painful overlap, when the light of decency was dawning but the lure of sin was still irresistible. Like alcohol, nicotine, or heroin, lepidoptery is hard to renounce.”

There are also two very nice essays on Ice Cream and Coffee, both of which reflect personal obsessions of mine.

“I recently calculated (assuming an average consumption of one pint of ice cream per week, at 1000 calories per pint, and the American Medical Association’s reckoning of 3500 calories per pound of stored body fat) that had I eaten no ice cream since the age of eighteen, I would currently weigh -416 pounds.”

The final essay in the book, “Under Water,” is a stunning essay about being a witness to a drowning at the age of 18, and being unable to help. Haunting.

Fadiman will teach you things you didn’t know, and entertain you while it happens. Forget my hurried review–go check the book out and see for yourself.

I happened to find this very entertaining Extension Publication in a box: Good Eating from Woods and Fields. It’s a 1960 reprint of an earlier pamphlet, and what a cultural artifact it is!

I couldn’t decide which of the photos to put here, and so went with my Beavis and Butthead instinct: Roast Beaver.

The pamphlet opens with instructions on how to please ‘the housewife” and also contains historic info on game hunting. Except… they sort of forgot to mention all the people that lived here and hunted for centuries before the Europeans with guns showed up. Whoops!

There are also recipes for rabbit, squirrel, woodchuck, and muskrat.

It’s time for OpenLab! Since I will almost certainly be on the job market soon, an inclusion in OL would be a handy thing for my vita. I’m just sayin’……

Here’s some posts I’m considering nominating:

• Insect Genitalia: an Entomological Obsession
• Are there Roaches in Your Coffee and Chocolate?
• Cochineal: It’s a Bug AND a Feature
• Breaking Fail News: Scientific American

Can you help a Bug out and nominate, if you like these? Thanks!

Just in time for the holidays–Xerces has a new native bee calendar!

“The Xerces Society and the Great Sunflower Project are happy to offer the 2010 Native Bee Calendar, which was created by Celeste Ets-Hokin. With magnificent close-up photos by Rollin Coville, this calendar takes you on a tour of twelve commonly encountered types of native bees. Each month features a full-page pin-up of a different bee genus, accompanied by a brief summary of its preferred plants, nesting needs, notes on how to identify it, and of course, a complete day-by-day calendar for each month.

All orders must be received online by Monday, November 30, 2009. Calendars will be shipped to arrive by the holidays.

Price: $14.00 (including shipping).

Xerces Society

Sales of this calendar will directly benefit the conservation work of both organizations.”

What are you waiting for?

The Donors Choose Challenge is now over, and the project to get more nature bloggers involved was a success!!

The total amount given for the Nature Blogs Group was $5,170. That put our group at #11–not quite in the top 10, but still pretty darn good! That also is quite a bit more than I managed by myself last year ($270). YAY! And THANK YOU!

Overall, the total amount given this year was $637,336. That’s amazing! I was very excited to see that one of the top groups was Making a difference for Michigan Children. Teachers are being laid off left and right here, so making sure our remaining teachers are supported and have the tools they need is very important.

9 of the 12 projects I chose were fully funded–that’s a lot of new buggy and gardening stuff in the hands of kids. Still need an end of year tax deduction? You can still give!!

• Bug Girl’s Giving Page (some projects only have 10 days or more left–please hurry!)
• Deep Sea News Oceans in the Classroom Initiative
• Potspoon’s Challenge
• Wren’s Bird Challenge Page

MUCH LOVE TO ALL OF YOU THAT DONATED!!!