Biology Project

*You may have seen past examples of wild and crazy bird creations displayed around my room. This year, the organisms and expectations have changed........stay tuned for results. I'll post photos.

Choose Your Defense
Spines, Vomit, and Camouflage

Learning Targets:
I can identify and describe the advantages of adaptations in parasitoids and hosts and the roles adaptations play in interactions between the two
I can explain the interaction between parasitoid and host
I can outline the life phases of a parasitoid

Method:
Design and create an imaginary caterpillar and associated parasitoid, then write reports including descriptions of the caterpillar and parasitoid adaptations.

Materials:
Poster board
Pens, color pencils, markers
Computers with internet access

Procedure:
PART 1 Design your own caterpillar suited for a specific environment and/or situation. Think about designing a caterpillar for the following:

• The caterpillar is on a green leafy tree with an abundance of tropical ants nearby
• The caterpillar is on a branch of a tropical tree. There is a large bird flying overhead
• The caterpillar is crawling across a blanket of decaying leaves on a forest floor. A rat lurks behind the nearest tree trunk.
• Design your own

You may want to run through the online activity by clicking here to get a sense of some caterpillar adaptations. This site allows you to play with adjusting COLOR, SPINES, or EXTRA to match the situation described.
Draw a rough draft of your caterpillar in your biology journal (due 5/12/09)
Create a final draft in class (5/14/09) using colored pencils or markers. Include:
On the backside of your poster describe why you chose these features for this particular caterpillar and include a common name and scientific name

PART 2
Design a parasitoid that would parasitize your caterpillar. Make your parasitoid either a fly or a wasp, but you be creative in what it looks like and how it behaves! Draw a rough draft of your caterpillar in your biology journal (due 5/12/09). Final drafts will be completed in class 5/14/09.

a) Sketch and color all developmental phases (adult, egg, larva, and pupa)
b) Give your parasitoid a common and scientific name
b) On the backside of your poster write a paragraph describing its life history. Include the following:

-How is the host caterpillar found?
-where and how are the eggs laid?
-what special features does it have that allow it to be a parasitoid?
-how does the egg change to larva, pupa, and adult?
-how long does it take to go through all the life stages?

You may wish to use the internet to conduct research about real parasitoid wasps and flies before beginning your design. Keep in mind though that I would like you to be creative and create your own highly specialized parasitoid.

Helpful websites:
bugguide.net
caterpillars.org
http://www.earthwatch2.org/lff/DuRoss/

Adaptation examples
Sticky hairs: It is difficult for mouth parts of insect predators such as ants to grasp the caterpillars, but parasites may have an advantage in laying their eggs on the caterpillars

Poison spines: Poison spines can irritate the skin of larger predators making it so they often don't get farther than the first touch

Closely packed hairs: It is harder for parasitic wasps to lay their eggs on caterpillars with tightly packed hair

Long hair spines: The caterpillar is able to detect predators through vibrations felt with long hairs. This gives it early warning to get away.

Glands: Glands near the caterpillars head can emit repulsing chemicals or squirt poisonous liquids

Vomit response: Vomit can be toxic, burning the skin of the potential predator

Yellow spots: Yellow spots imply that a caterpillar may be poisonous or taste bad

Fake eyes: Fake eyes give the impression that the caterpillar is a snake, allowing it extra time to drop to the ground and get away from a predator

Red: Is a warning that the caterpillar may be poisonous or taste bad

Brown: Provides camouflage protection. Blends in with tree trunks or dead leaf matter

Bright yellow: Is a warning that the caterpillar may be poisonous or taste bad

Green: Provides camouflage when on green vegetation

White: Is a warning that the caterpillar may be poisonous or taste bad

Crescent City Cuisine

I took advantage of a few opportunities to indulge my "foodie" side while in New Orleans. While at Dante's Kitchen, I savored some local grown fare, specifically their Preparation of Local Farm Vegetables (beets, rutabaga, turnips, leeks...) served with a goat cheese and caramelized onion croquette. The meal was preceded by the most amazing molasses spoon bread and accompanied by a delectable corn and crab bisque.

The fried food and copious amounts of gravy I could do without, maybe with the exception of an occasional Bignet from Cafe Du Monde. I have never seen so much powdered sugar in the air, on the floor, dusting tables and coating mouths.

Parting Stats

Hello everyone! Late last night, or perhaps I should say early this morning, tallies came in from our week of field collections. During our 7 days in the field last week, we:

-collected 513 caterpillars from 13 families in plots and general collections.

-reared 19 parasitoids (and many more are likely to be on the way!...)

-completed assessments for 10 plots, which translates to estimating 2,033,790 leaves from 785 square meters of bottomland hardwood forest and Cypress-Tupelo Swamp.

I've truly enjoyed working with such a diverse, enthusiastic, dedicated and talented group of teachers and researchers.

Up to Our Elbows in Mud

Those of you that traveled to Bilsa Biological Station in Ecuador with me (or with Rachel and Nate the subsequent year) know how the stronghold of mud suctioning your boots impedes ambulation. Every step becomes infinitely more difficult as the day goes on. The Louisiana mud we've encountered is every bit as fierce. Our days in the field are long and dirty and I love every bit of it. It is early to rise and late to turn out the lights and crawl into our bunks. Staying up until 12:00 or 1:00 flipping through guide books to identify all the plants, caterpillars, amphibians and reptiles of the day, uploading photos for blog postings, and sharing photos with teammates has become the norm.
.......

I still have a lot of gaps to fill in here so stay tuned for further details

The Pearl River

The Pearl River Wildlife Management Area is a 35,031 acre tract of bottom-land timber nestled between the East and West Pearl rivers. The terrain is flat with poor drainage disposing the area to annual flooding. The forest cover varies from all age hardwood stands, to cypress tupelo, to intermediate type marsh. Species composition of hardwoods include water oak, nuttall oak, cow oak, obtusa oak, overcup oak, live oak, bitter pecan, hickory, beech, magnolia, sweetgum, and elm. The overstory is variable with areas that area moderately open and contrasted by those that are closed.

Flood stage of the Pearl river is 14 feet. Over the duration of our stay, water levels ranged from 14 to 19 feet. Click here to find current water levels. The elevated water prohibited surveys of Honey Island Swamp so efforts were re-directed to traversing the stretches of the West Pearl River. Daily scouting most frequently involved shuttling crew and kayaks upstream to our launching point at Davis Landing in Slidell. From Davis Landing we paddled upstream in search of suitable sites to access land and began bushwhacking to the next plot (keeping an eye out for the abundant poison ivy and thorns of Rubus). The day of field work concluded with an hour long drift/paddle back downstream to Crawford Landing, jsut outside the fence surrounding our bunkhouse.

Adjacent to the bunkhouse commercial swamp tours departed daily loaded with tourists and school children. I am quite certain we got the best tour possible traveling via kayak without paying a dime.

Caterpillar ID Challenge

It's time to identify some caterpillars we found while out in the field. Your challenge is to go to caterpillars.org to see how many of them you can determine the scientific name for.

Give me pupation or give me death

It was exciting to be able to web-conference with those of you in my biology class today. Thanks for all the great questions.

My morning was spent in the lab/bunkhouse doing "zoo". The work that happens in the lab is just as important as what goes on in the field. All the the caterpillars we collect are put into ziplock bags and labeled with:

1. Date
2. Family.
Remember the classification system: Kindom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species in which living organisms are divided into homogenous groups by using hierarchical categories; the upper category includes all the lower ones.) For example, the classification for the stink bug Nezara viridula that you saw earlier in my blog looks like this:

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order: Heteroptera

Family: Pentatomidae

Genus: Nezara

Species: viridula

3. Site location (collected with GPS)
4. Genus and species of the vegetation the specimen was found on
5. Instar: this denotes the developmental stage of of larval or nymphal forms of holometabolous or hemometabolous insects. Insects complete different numbers of instars depending upon species and environmental conditions, with caterpillars reaching instar four or five before pupating.

During zoo all the bags are hung on a rack for storage, frass is removed daily and change in developmental stages (instar) is noted. Caterpillars are observed for signs of parasitoids. Data for all specimens is then entered into the computer for future analysis.

What do you think these ovoid objects are?