The Field Automatic Insect Recognition-Device-A Non-Lethal Semi-Automatic Malaise Trap for Insect Biodiversity Monitoring: Proof of Concept.

Field monitoring plays a crucial role in understanding insect dynamics within ecosystems. It facilitates pest distribution assessment, control measure evaluation, and prediction of pest outbreaks. Additionally, it provides important information on bioindicators with which the state of biodiversity and ecological integrity in specific habitats and ecosystems can be accurately assessed.

You are what you eat - The influence of polyphagic and monophagic diet on the flight performance of bees.

Movement performance of insects is an important measure of physiological fitness and is likely affected by novel stressors associated with global change. Reduced fitness can lead to smaller foraging areas and thus to decreasing abundance, diversity and nutritional quality, which could weaken insect populations and contribute to global insect decline. Here, we combined two different methods: An experimental semi-field design applying treatments in outdoor flight cages and a follow-up experiment conducted in the laboratory, in which different parameters of movement performance, such as (a) velocity, (b) duration and (c) distance of an insect's flight can be quantified.

taxalogue: a toolkit to create comprehensive CO1 reference databases.

Background: Taxonomic identification through DNA barcodes gained considerable traction through the invention of next-generation sequencing and DNA metabarcoding. Metabarcoding allows for the simultaneous identification of thousands of organisms from bulk samples with high taxonomic resolution. However, reliable identifications can only be achieved with comprehensive and curated reference databases.

Metabarcoding of trap nests reveals differential impact of urbanization on cavity-nesting bee and wasp communities.

Urbanization is affecting arthropod communities worldwide, for example by changing the availability of food resources. However, the strength and direction of a community's response is species-specific and depends on species' trophic level. Here, we investigated interacting species at different trophic levels in nests of cavity-nesting bees and wasps along two urbanization gradients in four German cities using trap nests.

Repeated subsamples during DNA extraction reveal increased diversity estimates in DNA metabarcoding of Malaise traps.

With increased application of DNA metabarcoding in biodiversity assessment, various laboratory protocols have been optimized, and their further evaluation is subject of current research. Homogenization of bulk samples and subsequent DNA extraction from a subsample of destructed tissue is a common first stage of the metabarcoding process. This can either be conducted using sample material soaked in a storage fixative, e.