Volume V, no. 3, Autumn 1998Table of Contents
Return to Deep Woods -
Adrienne Smith
Return to Deep WoodsI had heard about Deep Woods Farm from a discussion regarding the biological inventory in Dave Horn's lab. I had also looked at beetle samples from Deep Woods Farm, but I had yet to actually see this 280 acre spread of hardwood forest in Hocking County. That is, until the Ohio Coleopterists field trip on Saturday, September 26th. It was a hot, sunny day, perfect for collecting. As soon as everyone found their way around a long detour on route 56, we arrived at Deep Woods Farm. After a brief synopsis of the property by Dave Horn and David Blyth, we all began our pursuit for beetles, or in the case of the systematics students from Ohio State, any new family with six legs. David Osborne and I made our way straight up a ridge, after unsuccessfully trying to find a trail. Instead we followed a dry creek bed, and mushed our way up. But before we started climbing, we investigated a creek at the base of the ridge. The sunny, sandy areas appeared to be good habitat for tiger beetles. I did not collect any but I overheard that Cicindela repanda was collected near the creek. However, I did collect two Nebria lacustris Casey (Carabidae), that I found on damp soil under rocks. As we hiked along the dry creek bed we passed through a hemlock patch, and encountered rotten logs. For many coleopterists, rotten logs are a favorite collecting haven for beetles, like carabids, passalids, buprestids, and scarabs. So naturally, David and I had to stop and disassemble the log. We left the log, satisfied with two specimens of Pterostichus moestus (Say), a purple carabid about 20 mm long. Ken Karns meanwhile, collecting along the creek, found 9 species of Carabidae that had not yet been identified from the pitfall and blacklight trapping efforts during the summer. His efforts brought the list of Carabidae from Deep Woods to 59 species. Dave Horn led a group up the ridge to check traps and explain the biological inventory research that began in May and was still underway. Collectors investigated the many different habitats at Deep Woods, such as a stream, an open field, rock shelters, patches of coniferous growth, and mixed hardwood forest. The field group included systematics students, members of Dave Horn's lab, entomology majors and graduate students, and amateur collectors. It was a successful collecting day for everyone in the diverse group of beetle enthusiasts. Everyone seemed to enjoy the day, and a spring field trip will be an anticipated event. - Adrienne Smith First Generation American Burying Beetles Recovered From Ohio Reintroduction SiteOn 28 September 1998, Foster Purrington, Adrienne Smith and myself trekked into the hills of southeastern Ohio to the site of the first mainland reintroduction of the American Burying Beetle (ABB). Our mission was to set up pitfall transects and trap, mark and release the first progeny of our efforts 68 days earlier. In contrast to the fanfare of the first release, this day was more reserved as we were somewhat anxious to see if our efforts had not been in vain. It was a beautiful, sunny day, with comfortable temperatures in which to toil as we dug our pitfall holes with cup cutters. We set our first transect of 20 traps at the initial release site in a heavily wooded area. We used spoiled chopped chicken wings (new BW3 wing flavor... Yum!) as our bait. In retrospect the wings could have been more spoiled to attract beetles, but at least it was passable to both beetles and pitfallers. These beetles have an incredible olfactory sense and can detect minute amounts of the chemicals of death. They must be able to get to this bonanza resource very quickly after death and get it underground before other competitors beat them to it. If the chicken is too spoiled it becomes attractive to other silphids such as Necrodes surinamensis and Necrophila americana as well as to blowflies. After setting our first transect, we collected the remaining equipment from the initial release. This included the poultry netting, flower pots, spikes and wire used to secure the brooding pairs and their young from marauding scavengers. We will store these supplies for the winter and reuse them with next year’s release. We then set up a smaller transect of 10 traps at our secondary release site which was at the edge of an old field. A nearby persimmon tree provided us with some sweet diversions. We also set up an additional transect of 10 traps along the perimeter of a forest road approximately 1 mile from the primary release site. Adrienne and Foster agreed to camp out that night near the site and check the trap line the next morning. It rained that night and unfortunately that usually means diminished catches in the traps. It was a pleasant surprise to find a lone female Nicrophorus americanus in the middle of the transect. She was a large, newly-emerged and apparently healthy individual. No other species of Nicrophorus were collected. The specimen was tagged and released after being photographed and shown to other facility personnel. Dave Horn, operating from his cabin base camp (Fort Horn) checked the traps the following day after a night of cooler, windy weather. He found yet another Nicrophorus americanus, this time a large, robust male in the very same trap in which the female was captured the night before. Once again no other species of Nicrophorus were taken. Photographs and video footage were taken of this specimen and as before, he was marked with a bee tag and released into the wild. Although we captured only two ABBs, we are excited about this news. The catches may have been reduced due to the overnight rain or the relative freshness of the bait, given the lack of congenerics captured. It is likely that the beetles were just emerging from their pupal chambers and perhaps the bulk of the generation had already emerged and dispersed. In either event it is apparent that some of our reintroduced pairs were successful in rearing broods. When Michael Amaral of the USFWS was told of the news, he reminded us of what they say about the Boston Red Sox... "Just you wait until next year!" - George Keeney Notes on Ground Beetles in OhioThe joint venture of The Ohio State University and the U.S. Forest Service in Vinton and Lawrence Counties which began in 1995 to assay faunal shifts under prescribed burning protocols has led to our discovery of ground beetles (Carabidae) previously unreported for Ohio, and an insight into one beetle's robust increase in response to fire. Additionally, along with The Ohio Biological Survey, we started a survey in 1998 of invertebrates at a remarkable site in Hocking County, David Blyth's 280-acre Deep Woods Farm, that also is yielding new Ohio ground beetle records. This location spans a number of habitat types including a riverine forest along the East Fork of Queer Creek, upland deciduous woodland, an old field sere with agricultural and lentic elements, a clump of old hemlock trees on a steep north facing slope, all perched on variously exposed Black Hand Sandstone. Signature assemblages of carabids reflect distinctions among these habitats. The last Ohio Coleopterists field outing was a visit to this site (and see herein Adrienne Smith's review of that field trip). Most of the new ground beetles we found are medium to small, although one, Carabus sylvosus Say, is sizeable. Most were collected with automatic blacklight traps or in pitfall traps, at upland sites in mixed-oak forests of about 90 years age. All species are evidently either uncommon anywhere in Ohio, or common only locally, or maybe they are shifting their distributions northward, as is possibly the case with Pentagonica flavipes (LeConte) and Lebia collaris Dejean. On the other hand these last two may not be resident but may have simply been blown in as adults from the south, like potato leafhoppers and black cutworm moths. Like other Lebia, collaris larvae parasitize larvae of other beetles, probably a particular species of Chrysomelidae that may be uncommon in our area. Even after four years of assiduous trapping in Vinton and Lawrence Counties, most of the newly reported species are known from only one or a very few specimens, while of others we have short series. What can be said from such threadbare capture information is very little, but we are tempted to suggest, in the case of C. sylvosus, Cyclotrachelus incisus (LeConte), and perhaps Piesmus submarginatus (Say), that some unique and precise and uncommon blend of attributes at the collection site allows their presence, that they are quite stenotopic animals. All three of these species were found only in pitfall traps; the first two are flightless and if P. submarginatus flies it hasn't yet been proven. Probably it cannot be said that any of these uncommon ground beetles are being diminished by some aspect of a newly hostile environment (an anthropogenic threat for example), because Ohio has long been scoured and treaded by synoptic collectors notorious for taking long series (Josef Knull, Bob Androw, Barry Valentine, Kip Will et alia), and they have not found any or only a very few. Nor have the fires we set seemed to have any negative effect on them. On the other hand, our fires have significantly boosted the numbers of a synanthropic carabid, Notiobia terminata (Say), by setting the stage for an explosion of a favored food: fireweed (Erechtites hieracifolia (L.) Raf.) (Asteraceae). This flightworthy beetle, commonly taken in agricultural and ruderal settings, eats the seeds of this plant. - Foster Forbes Purrington |