Rainy Day=No Insects

Time : 9.30am
Venue : Acacia dominant plot
Attendance : Audrey Wong(yup,solo)

I knew it's gonna be bad when it was raining around 7 plus.. NO sunshine, NO insects. Apparently they don't like hanging out at the vegetation when it's not sunny. Nonetheless, I went and tried my luck but unfortunately, the trip today only proved that Miss Lua was right. That's what she told me anyway. So, I would have to go and do it again tmr morning instead..
Will blog about yesterday's trip later in the evening..
Yesterday was A LOTTT better!
Not to mention I had more than 10 mosquito bites on me today! No insects?=Not so true becos there's lots of mosquitoes which are also Insectas.. GRRRR Actually got one in my net but i let it off.
*oopppss, not so ethical!

Today :(

Malaise Day

Time : 4.30pm
Venue: Acacia dominant and Mahang dominant plot
Attendance : Alex Yee, Audrey Wong

Today, while waiting for Alex, I went off to check at my light traps..(mixed vegetation & tiup-tiup dominant) Still nothing. And pitfall- lots of ANTS!!(Hymenopteras).
However, I got quite a few wasps and flies in my Malaise at the tiup-tiup dominant plot. At least, I think.. Took a peep of them today. Will be leaving for 3 days or so..
At the mixed vegetation plot however, I got an Orthoptera. Which is quite suprising and somehow made my day because it was sooo pretty!! (:


The Leaf Insect


A pathetic bottle.. Too clean a bottle *sigh*

When Alex came, we started to set traps at the Acacia dominant plot and also Mahang dominant plot.. Which was quite successful because it looked quite nice-at the Mahang dominant plot. Thanks Alex for introducing that plot to me. The trees there are quite strategically situated for my trap. Haha.. I'm actually starting to fall in love with Malaise just because of the leaf insect. Here's how my trap looked like! Proud of them. Hope that they'll make me proud of them as well. HEhe... Thanks Dr. David for being so kind..



Something how my Malaise traps looked like

Yup, thanks Alex a lottt for volunteering and sorry about the mosquito bites you got.

Here's what I got as well. Don't know how tho..



So much for today.

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday..

Came back from a visit to the Supreme Court(Forensics Outing) and went straight to Dr. David Lohman to get the malaise traps. It was very nice of him to loan them to me and I was a bit sorry to have woke him up earlier in the morning. I actually called Janice because she said I can get the Malaise anytime I want but whooaaa she's at Malaysia already. hahaa..So, she said I can ask them from anyone in the lab. Unfortunately, nobody knows where they're kept except for Dr. David. And Enoka called him but he was sleeping *ouch* So I thought I should get them from him only today(tuesday) but somehow I managed to get back NUS around 4pm so I thought I should give him a call and get it from him. Yeahhhh.. Learned something new- NO procrastination when you do things on your own. Else, you'll never get anything done. That's what discipline is all about when you solo. Haha.. Yup, he showed me how to set them up. Apparently not as troublesome as the light traps(batteries are a killer!! As if you're carrying rice sacks into the field!!)

Date : 25th Feb 2008
Time : 4.00pm
Venue : Mixed vegetation and Tiup-tiup dominant plot
Attendance : Audrey Wong, Chen Dexiang

Set up 2 light traps unfortunately one didn't work. I checked the both of them before going out already. And they still don't work!! Grrrr Still left them anyway. Just to see what I'll get the next day.

Date : 26th Feb 2008
Time : 2.00pm
Venue : Mixed vegetation and Tiup-tiup dominant plot
Attendance : Theresa Su, Tiffany Chai, Audrey Wong

Set up 2 Malaise traps.. They weren't so hard. Just had to get the right trees to tie them on to. Hope they'll work.. Anyway, my hopes ain't high cos Dr. David said the amount of insects he got from Malaise up at the ridge was a joke. So, I guess I can only hope. *cross fingers* In Thailand, he got a lootttt more things. Well, what can I say? I've already noticed that the insects I got from my light traps were a lot less than what I got in January.. The fogging. Soon, there'll be no more left. Funny how the mosquitoes are still there while all others die. Yuck.. Imagine in 20 yrs, the only insects left are mosquitoes. They'll dominate the earth and be as bit as 3 inches! Ewwww..
Anyway, I checked my light traps. The one which didn't work apparently got a few while the one which worked didn't get anything! Well, nothing at all!! It rained yesterday. Wonder if it affects my traps. Tot it shouldn't cos insects are supposed to get shelter from the rain and fly into my traps and DIE there. *evil grin*
My pitfalls are flooded with rain water as well.
Conclusion : rain - no good for insect traps!!

Tiffany is a Year 1 Life Sciences student btw.. I asked her how she felt helping out today in the field, and her reply was.. 'It's complicated'
Her feelings were 'complicated'. Haha.. Not bad for a first timer? (:


Thanks Tiffany!


Post Malaise : Theresa looking for some reptile.. Taking a pic of it becos we didn't recognize which species exactly it was.


Found this at the Acacia plot.. Looks quite interesting. Some fungi.. Hope it's not poisonous.

Photos from Yeterday's Trip

Thanks Alicia for taking pictures and coming with me.

Twice in a day...

Time : 8.00am
Venue :
1. Behind S2(mixed plot)
2. Behind KE7, nearing NUH(Acacia plot)
Attendance : Theresa Su, Alicia Tan, Audrey Wong

Collected the light trap i set up at Acacia plot. Kinda happy this time cos it has got Coleopteras in it. With some tiny moths and others which I haven't sort out. There wasn't any time to go to the lab so I preserved them in ethanol I stored in my room. Haha.. Handy to have a few test tubes of ethanol just in case.

Pitfall doesn't have much except for ants which I've also gotten the last time so I decided to leave the pitfall there for another 3 days.

Time : 4.30pm
Venue :
1. Behind S2(mixed plot)
2. Behind S2(tiup-tiup plot)

Yayy!! Bashed in again. The tiup-tiup plot was a bit steep and slippery because of the leaves. There's around 5cm thick of leaves on the group which made it sooo slippery. Almost fell. Haha.. Luckily Alicia caught my bag(which she finally said useful). Very proud of my bag. Anyway, planted 2 pitfalls; 1 at each plot. Hopefully I'll be able to get something. The soil at both areas were easier to dig compared to the Acacia plot. It was so hard my hands almost gave way. Haha.. Ok, exaggerating.

Hopefully I'll be getting something on Monday morning.

Thanks Alicia for coming along digging the earth and Theresa for getting me the pitfalls.
(:

A fruitfuil day, yet not very fruitful..

I went out with Alex around 2pm to walk along the ridge. Identifying plants better since he's the plant guy. Hahah.. Can recognize them so well. I learned how to identify wild cinnamon, simpoh air, figs, mahang, and others which I've already known-acacia, albezia, tiup-tiup. ooohh I also got to know an interesting name of Simpoh Air. Never thought of that and I don't think I ever will in a million years.. People are just so creative!


5pm. I set out for traps setting with Theresa. Only managed to set up one light trap because the other one didn't work! I don't know why yet. The battery was charging althought the light was flickerin while it's charging. Light bulbs should be ok becos I took the pile Lynn said was working. The other one is working so I didn't get the wrong pile. Anyway, I'll check them out in a while bcos I'm dead tired. I think the battery weighed 10kg each! OK, maybe 5kg? I DON'T know! It's just suuuppperr heavy! And I bashed in today. Felt to totally jungle. Almost twisted my ankle while crossing the paths.. There's so much things in the way and I just walked though. Really never thought I'd be doing this. A certain part of me feels proud of myself for doing this. Getting myself dirty? Maybe! But I'm just so tired now. And I also set the new pitfall Theresa helped me to get. She also got me spade.

Thanks Alex and Theresa for helping and coming along.

And also thanks to Alicia for helping me so much throughout the project.

Hope I'll get something interesting tomorrow.
Rest!

Sweepnetting session with Miss Lua

Attendance:
Audrey Wong
Alicia Tan
Miss Lua Hui Kheng
Chen Dexiang

Time : 9.30am
Venue: Dense vegetation patch behind S2


We met Miss Lua at the museum and shown her the nets Dexiang made. Sad to say, she said that our nets are not useable for our research. It was very kind of Miss Lua to borrow 2 sweep nets from her colleague for us. We went on for our sweep netting behind S2(around 10.30am-after all the briefing). She explained why the nets Dexiang made wasn't suitable; it has got too big holes. We went on without Dexiang because he had his lecture. After sweeping till about 12pm, I went on to Miss Lua's office to sort out the insects and got 5 orders. So kind of her to let me use her place for work. I'm so touched!
The 5 orders were:
1. Hymenoptera(Bees & Ants)
2. Diptera(Flies)
3. Lepidoptera(Butterflies)-We've got 2 butterflies
4. Coleoptera(Beetles)
5. Arachnida(though not an insect but I'm quite amazed by it-It looks really pretty under the microscope with 8 eyes)
From Miss Lua's book on spiders, it's a Lynx spider from the family Oxyopidae.

This is roughly how it looks like.

Yup, it has got 'spikes' on it's legs. And the 6 eyes are nicely arranged in front.. A beauty!

Sweep Nets Meeting

Yesterday, I met Miss Luah, the museum curator @ Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research. I asked her about the techniques and variables which should be taken into consideration when sweeping. Of course, I read up earlier and found out that there are a variables which will affect the efficiency of a sweep net.
1. weather - wind speed, temperature, intensity of solar radiation.
2. habitats- height of plants
3. time of the day
4. different styles of sweeping
Since wind speed is not controllable and sweeping is done in such a short period, it is negligible. Temperature, although varies but is quite stable after all. As for solar radiations, we're doing the sleeping when the just 'just rises'. Around 9.30am in the morning would be best according to Miss Luah. She also said that the leaves shouldn't be wet when we're doing the sweeping.
For every sub-hab, I should be sweeping a few trees. There's one patch of tiup-tiup with almost no undergrowth so I don't know how am I gonna come about that area. We'll see later when I go up the ridge with Miss Luah at 9.30am. She'll be showing me some techniques for sweeping. It has to be fast and traps the insects at the bottom of the net so that it'll be easier for me to turn them into the killing jars. Different styles of sweeping actually gets different insects because some insects will be scared away when you sweep for the first time already.

Recce with Mr. Siva

We went on a recce along Kent Ridge Road, starting from S2, Science Faculty. What we saw was mainly tiup-tiup with some vegetation on the ground. However, there was this patch where most of the ground vegetation was cleared. These two patches has to be compared while setting up traps.
There were also two patches directly opposite S2 after coming up from the stairs with dense mixed vegetation. It can only be accessed with a parang creating a trail. This is also another patch where traps will be set to compare the diversity of sub-habitats at Kent Ridge Campus Forested Area.
Acacia patch was found behind NUH and KE7. Because the acacia patch is only very thing, the light traps set will be affected by the light pollution nearby. There is no way to go in deeper to avoid the light pollution.
A few more patches are yet to be identified. The patch after KE7(on the left-according to map) was blocked by empty houses and has to be identified by going thru the houses later on.
Acacia patch nearing engine bridge is also not clearly identified due to the construction works going on there.
So far, the sub habitats that will be compared are 2 tiup-tiup patches(behind Uni Hall, and behind S2 till Science Library), 2 mixed dense vegetation patches and the acacia patch behind NUH.

Not a very satisfying result

Date : 2nd Feb 2008
Time : 8.30am
Attendance : Audrey and Alicia

We collected the pitfall and insect traps from the night. Quite a disappointment.. The pitfall had got lots and lots of ants(order : Hymenoptera) in it. There were several larger ants and many small ants(which is preserved in ethanol now, yet to be identified). This time, we filled the pitfall cup with one third liquid(salt and detergent). There wasn't anything sweet though, still don't understand why are the ants there. The only thing I can think of is that there might be some dead insects inside earlier(the bigger ants) and so the smaller ants were there to harvest some food. Will have to check under the microscope if there's any damage on the bigger ants.

Light trap. There were quite a few very small Lepidopteras inside there. Also, there were a few other species which were yet to be identified. The light trap didn't went well most probably because there were lamp posts nearby and that place was highly fogged. Further light traps will be carried out in areas further from lamp posts to compare the difference. Fogging might have highly lowered the population of insects at Kent Ridge. However, crickets should be in abundance since I always hear their calls when I go frogging with Alicia.