Short Lab enters Web 2.0 (finally)

I am very excited to unveil a pair of new lab websites that went live yesterday. The first, at http://sites.google.com/site/theshortlab/, is a new lab homepage and replaces our old one I kept at hydrophiloidea.org. This page is an entire new build, not just a data migration, and it has LOTS of new features that I will discuss in future posts (not all of them are rolled-out yet).

The second site is a comprehensive data portal for our active Venezuela survey project: http://sites.google.com/site/vzaquaticinsects/home. It has all the standard, requisite information like lists of collaborators and habitat summaries, but also will be the primary means we share all of our locality data, habitat photos, water quality info, etc. There are still a few kinks to be worked out, but I am giddy with excitement to finally get this thing off the drawing board.

I hope you will find these new sites useful.

Spring visitor

Ruben Cordero, who recently finished his masters at the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, has been visiting for the past couple weeks. Ruben has been helping to sort Dytiscids, his group of interest, in the general collection and for the Venezuela project. Welcome Ruben!

Rock Pools

Here is a new species of Berosus from Venezuela that will appear in a forthcoming paper. It has a very specific habitat: it lives in "pothole" pools in the large granite outcrops in the Guiana Shield region. Despite our sampling efforts, this species has only been found in these pools, where it can be fairly common--but nowhere else...not even in nearby forest pools or ditches! Another example of the high habitat specificity in the region.

UAE Hydrophilids

Ever want to identify your water scavenger beetles from the United Arab Emirates, but frustrated by lack of a good key? No more! See the latest volume of the "Arthropods of the UAE" for the complete reference.

And then there was molecular data...

Our molecular lab is finally set up, tested, and getting kicked into high gear! We had our first successful extractions and PCRs about two weeks ago and are about ready to launch into a fast and furious phase of data generation. Right now we're running a screen of 7 genes through a test set of 13 hydrophiloid taxa before settling on a final gene set for our next set of projects. Now we're doing "real" science (kidding!)

More Costa Rica photos...

The Giant Water Scavengers

After unnecessary dawdling, my work on the Hydrophilina was finally published this month in the journal Systematics and Biodiversity. In addition to the first phylogeny for the group, a very curious new genus is described from Venezuela:

Short, A.E.Z. 2010. Phylogeny, evolution and classification of the giant water scavenger beetles (Coleoptera: Hydrophilidae: Hydrophilini: Hydrophilina). Systematics & Biodiversity, 8(1), 17-37.

Abstract. The hydrophiline subtribe Hydrophilina is composed of nearly 200 described species, including all known water scavenger beetles over 15 mm in length. Found in all biogeographic regions, the lineage is the most recognizable group in the family due to its large size and presence of a sternal keel. A phylogenetic analysis of Hydrophilina based on 80 adult morphological characters supports the reciprocal monophyly of most genera, including Tropisternus Solier, Sternolophus Solier, Hydrophilus Geoffroy, and Hydrobiomorpha (s. str.) Blackburn. The monophyly of Hydrochara Berthold was not resolved. The subgenus Brownephilus Mouchamps of the genus Hydrobiomorpha is elevated to generic rank and suggested to subtend (Hydrophilus+ Hydrobiomorpha (s. str.)). A newly discovered taxon from Venezuela, Protistolophus spangleri gen. et sp. nov., is described and resolved as the earliest diverging lineage of the Hydrophilina. A revised generic classification of the Hydrophilina is proposed, including a key and revised diagnoses for each genus. The evolution of giantism and complex secondary sexual characters are discussed in the context of the newly developed phylogenetic hypothesis.

Back

Back to the lab today after our first lab-group fieldwork. Costa Rica was a logistical dream, as usual. We set up 6 FITs, and did 24 berleses from sifted litter. A number of river and stream collections were made, as well as numerous other hand collections, including two entire ant-nest excavations. Now the real work begins.

Costa Rica 2010

First, although I wasn't able to blog due to lack of computer, the Venezuela trip went very well. We were able to sample at about 27 sites in the northeast. A few unexpected (new) Myxophaga, but otherwise nothing I would consider bizarre. Fast forward, and the lab is now off to Costa Rica on Sunday for 11 days. My graduate (Taro) and undergraduate (Grey) students, our collection manager (Zack Falin) and I will spend a week at Tapanti National Park and also a bit at INBio. Tapanti is a super-dense cloud/pre-montane forest about 2 hours south of San Jose. I've collected there four times before. It is a challenging place to collect, but the rewards are high. We're going to be implementing some quantitative sampling protocols and doing some reconnaissance for a possible study abroad class.

Empanadas and a batido

I flew to Maracaibo, Venezuela on Thursday for the next aquatic insect survey expedition. Yesterday I had some meetings at the Universidad del Zulia, and today I am at the collection. Tomorrow I take an 8 hour taxi ride to Maracay. I still await to have my favorite Venezuelan food (cachapas), but having a few cheese empanadas and a fresh strawberry shake in the morning is not far behind. I don´t have my laptop on this trip, so I may not be able to post many photos unfortunately.

Old Field Notes

About a year ago, Paul and Phyllis Spangler entrusted me with their field logs and notes from their lifetime of fieldwork around the world (the earliest notes are from 1958, the most recent the mid-90's). This giant pile of notebooks provides the raw data and supporting information for the more than 1 million prepared water beetle specimens that they added to national collection during their tenure at the Smithsonian. We are working to digitize and capture the data in these logs to make it accessible to anyone who is interested, as well as facilitate future databasing activities. (via assinging collecting event codes). Right now, we're focused on the South American logs. They have already helped us plan collecting activites and provided insights into the habitat nuances of a number of species.

More Oocyclus

I spent some time over the last few weeks playing with our imaging system here in the division. I'm still learning, but so far I'm pleased with the results. Here is a composite of some of the new Oocyclus from Venezuela I am describing with Mauricio Garcia. I've just finished the photos for all 15 species. Next up: tackling the 35+ species of Berosus. The time it takes to take the actual photos is not really that long (I take as stack of about 15-25 images and then use CombineZ to smash them together)--the tedius time-involved process is selected a presentable specimen that is CLEAN (or, as clean as you can get it) and positioning it just so.