Bark Beetle Study

[galeogirl]

I haven't been on AB in such a long time but I've been keeping busy in college and recently took on an interesting position as the morphological identification assistant for a survey of Pacific Northwest bark beetles in our two on-campus Douglas fir forests. It's been great so far. I've been setting rough sorting parameters for our collection, doing IDs, taking detailed notes on the morphology of individuals specimens, and will probably be out setting traps again in the beginning of March. So much fun! I'm learning so much, too. I'll post pics once I start going out in the field again.

 

[Tenodera]

Sounds like you definitely have been keeping busy! And hey, there's an ideal project for an entomophile. Keep us updated please!

 

[SamuraiSid]

My brother works at a lumberyard in BC and brought me one that he found. About 4 inches long. Id love to see a larvae.

 

[galeogirl]

The bark beetle species that I'm working with tend to be very small. The big ones are around 7.00mm in length, with most of them somewhere around 4.00mm or smaller. Some so small that we can only do morphological identifications with scanning electron micrographs (SEM) since we can't discern meaningful identification points with our dissecting scopes alone. There's another researcher doing a project to identify DNA tags for these beetles. I'm supposed to receive some training on the DNA procedures once I'm done with my current piece of the project. The student assistant who had the position before me let the collection get into shoddy shape and didn't do a good job cataloging our specimens. I've been bathing specimens in ethanol trying to dislodge them from bone-dry containers without damaging them. Also trying to get a complete inventory of what we have and sort out the things that are definitively not bark beetles. It's fun, lots of time alone in the lab.