Why I Joined the Twitterati: Blogs, Tweets & Talks – Making Entomology Visible

It is now thirteen months since I tweeted my first tweet and almost a year since my blog went public.  It is thus an opportune moment I feel to assess how this first year has gone and to see if I can convert other oldies and not so oldies to make that leap into the world of public social media.  For many years I had held the whole concept of social media in contempt – Facebook and Twitter for me, represented the very epitome of mindless gossip and tabloid extremism.  I saw them as entirely the domain of the chattering classes and the idle young.  Perhaps an extreme view, since some of my children, a number of my colleagues, my wife and even my mother-in-law were on Facebook. Still, as someone who did not get a mobile phone until March this year (and only because of the fact that during the week, I live alone, and my wife feels that it is a sensible thing to have in case of emergency), I guess I was just living up the image of the techno-refusenik.

That said, I have always felt that the job of a scientist is to communicate and having always had a desire to teach and pass on my enthusiasm for entomology to others, I have not been remiss in coming forward.  I did actually have a fling with public engagement way back in 1981 when I worked in Finland and developed their early warning system for cereal aphids.  My research actually appeared in the Finnish national farmer’s magazine almost simultaneously with my official scientific publication.

  

My subsequent career as first a forest entomologist with the Forestry Commission and then as a university teacher at Imperial College, was pretty much that of the typical academic, with the occasional appearance on the radio and the rare television interview, plus the odd reference to my work in the national or local newspapers.

Mainly however, I was, until about the turn of the century just communicating with my peers i.e. publishing scientific papers and facilitating communication between other entomologists; I seem to have spent the last twenty years or so editing journals, first cutting my teeth on the Royal Entomological Society’s house journal Antenna, and then moving on to Ecological Entomology and for the last seven years as Editor-in-Chief of Insect Conservation & Diversity.  So there I was facilitating the dissemination of entomological knowledge around the world and busy doing my own entomological research and training future entomologists by running the only entomology degree in the UK and also of course supervising lots of PhD students. All very commendable indeed, but perhaps a bit limited in scope…

Round about the turn of the century I started to get really fed up with the ignorance shown about entomology and the bias towards vertebrates by funding bodies and journals.   I started going into schools and giving talks to the public whenever possible trying to draw people’s attention to the importance of insects..

And getting more and more provocative..

And getting more and more irritated and desperate in print..

It was obvious that there was a problem; the misconception that the public tend to have in that all insects are either pests or things that sting or bite them and need to be stamped on (Leather & Quicke, 2009:  http://www.harper-adams.ac.uk/staff/profile/files/uploaded/Leather_&_Quicke_2009_JBE.pdf ).  Some of the entomological misconceptions were amusing but being entomologically pedantic still wrong..

others which were annoying but perhaps excusable..

  

and some which were just plain inexcusable..

The problem has been neatly summed up by others too..

One of my PhD students, Fran Sconce, whom I have known since she was an undergraduate…

had for some time been extolling the virtues of social media as a means of scientific communication,

finally convinced me that it was time to make a leap and to move into a different environment.

and thus was born @Entoprof

and Don’t Forget the Roundabouts

So like a fellow ex-Silwoodian, Natalie Cooper who recently reported on her first year as a blogger/tweeter http://www.ecoevoblog.com/2013/10/29/to-tweet-or-not-to-tweet-that-is-the-question/ I too feel the need to assess how this first year has gone.

Well, first I found that there were lots of old friends out there, and even my old school started following me….

A ton of ex-students, not all of whom are entomologists…

Increased opportunities for outreach and meeting people I didn’t even know existed..

And making new professional links….

And incidentally as an Editor I have found new people to ask to act as reviewers and I’ve had great fun continuing my fight against institutional vertebratism …

and got a great result which I am certain I wouldn’t have got without Twitter..

With my new friends I entered into public debate..

and got another result which again would not have happened without Twitter..

and found a new way to interact at conferences..

and been really inspired.  I have thoroughly embraced the concept of social media and have now set up a Twitter account for the Entomology MSc http://www.harper-adams.ac.uk/postgraduate/201004/entomology  I run..

and also a Blog for them to run http://aphidsrus.wordpress.com/

My latest venture with the aid of

is the A-Z of Entomology, the first letter of which you can view here if you want to learn about aphids  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liBt59teaGQ

So yes it has been a great year and a heartfelt thank you to all my Tweeps and to all of you that follow my blog.  I really have found this both useful and educational.  It has been a great eye-opener.  And of course a really big vote of thanks to Fran for finally convincing me that I should join the Twitterati.

Not all aphids live on leaves

I haven’t written about aphids for a while, so I thought I would indulge myself and tell you about a few of my favourite aphids.  Most people’s perceptions of aphids (assuming that they know what  aphids are of course) is that they live on leaves.  They will I think, also possibly know that they are usually found on the undersides of leaves, although I may be assuming too much here.  In fact, many species of aphid do not live on leaves; a number of species feed on shoots, twigs and branches and some actually feed on the main trunks of trees.  Yet other species live on the roots of trees and herbaceous plants, such as the apple-grass aphid, Rhopalosiphum insertum which can be a pest of apples and cereals, feeding on the leaves and buds of apples and the roots of grasses and cereals.   Another root-feeding aphid that is a double pest, is Pachypappa tremulae, the spruce root aphid, which host alternates between the aerial parts of aspen trees and the roots of Norway spruce; easily visible when infesting the roots of young potted plants due to the presence of white waxy tufts on its rear end.

Some aphids not only live underground feeding on roots, but are entirely dependent on being farmed by ants e.g.  Tetraneura ulmi, which host-alternates between elm and grass roots, and  Forda formicaria, which host-alternates between Pistachio trees and grass roots.

http://www.aphotofauna.com/images/bugs_homoptera/bug_forda_formicaria_hirsuta_root_aphid_03-03-13_3.jpg

Both these aphids are looked after or ‘farmed’ by the yellow meadow ant Lasius flavus in exchange for donations of honeydew.

These two aphid species, along with a number of others, have an enlarged anal plate surrounded by special hairs that form the so-called trophobiotic organ.  This acts as a storage device that allows the aphid to accumulate honeydew ready for the ants to remove.  Those aphids that have a more casual (facultative) relationship with ants, do not have this organ which is the basis of this remarkable mutualism.

Another aphid that is farmed by ants, but in a somewhat different way, is the rather larger rose root aphid, Maculolachnus submacaula, which as its name suggests, feeds on rose roots.  In this case, the ants allow the aphids above ground but only in an ant tunnel, similar to those produced by termites when they are infesting a building.  I have only ever been lucky enough to see this aphid once, some 35 years ago in Norwich when I was doing my PhD and noticed things that looked like termite trails running up the main stem of one of my rose bushes.  On breaking them open, well I am a curious entomologist, I found to my surprise not only ants but large brown aphids.

http://jardiweb-floralbum.forumsactifs.com/t1797-colonie-de-pucerons

for a better view of the aphid see http://www.afripics.co.za/home/products/product.php?ProductID=1301564582

But of course the really spectacular ones are those that feed on branches of trees such as the giant willow aphid Tuberolachnus salignus (famous for its sharks fin) and those from the genus Stomaphis which feed through the bark of trees such as oak and

sycamore and are possessed of truly enormous mouthparts such as those of Stomaphis aceris which feeds on sycamore

This one, despite its enormous mouthparts, is quite difficult to find as it hides underneath the bark, but luckily it is ant attended so if you see ants scurrying around on the bark of sycamore and disappearing underneath loose flaking bits, it is a good bet that if you gently lever off the loose bark you will find yourself in the presence of this weird-looking creature.

The more I learn about aphids the more I find to marvel at.  Aphids really are remarkable and we know so little about so many of them and their weird and wonderful life styles.

Useful References

Blackman, R.L. & Eastop, V.F. (19 94) Aphids on the World’s Trees.  An  Identification and Information Guide.  CABI Publishing. http://www.aphidsonworldsplants.info/index.htm

Evenhuis, H.H. (1968)  The natural control of the apple grass aphid,  Rhopalosiphum insertum, with remarks on the control of apple aphids in general in The Netherlands. Netherlands Journal of Plant Pathology, 74, 106-117  http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02309501#page-1

Farrell, J.A. & Stufkens, M.W. (1989) Flight activity and cereal host relationships of Rhopalosiphum spp. (Homoptera: Aphididae) in Canterbury New Zealand Journal of Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science, 17, 1-7  http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01140671.1989.10428003

Ivens, A.B.F., Kronauer, D.J.C., Pen, I., Weissing, F.J. & Boomsma, J.J. (2012)  Ants farm subterranean aphids mostly in single clone groups – an example of prudent husbandry for carbohydrates and proteins?  BMC Evolutionary Biology, 12:106 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186%2F1471-2148-12-106