Service Learning - Night Arthropod Survey:Karina Yu

Night Arthropod Survey (5 hours)
Event organizer: Jennifer (Gwen) Shlichta
Email: gwen.bugheart@email.edcc.edu

Gwen Shlichta and Tom Murphy organized and sponsored this event/activity. The goal of the event was to learn about arthropods and understand the impact of moths on the environment, how to attract them, survey them, and collect them. My duties for this event was to help collect moths, carry supplies, find an ideal spot for set up, and to look and observe different moths and understand the impacts moths have to the environment.

For the first half of the service learning we drove to the Japanese Gulch and hiked around the park to find a suitable stop to begin setting up the equipment. When the right spot was found we carried the equipment over and set everything in place, like hanging white sheets in-between the trees and hanging a black light on the sheet. Originally we had wanted to use a mercury light which is a lot brighter than the black light however we later found out that some of the gear was missing. The second half of the service learning was waiting for night-flying insects to be attracted to the black light sheet. Some of the insects were identified and collected to be taken and tagged by Gwen and Tom. This experience affected my thoughts on the role of science in society because it let me see the importance in its connection to other organisms and its environment. By surveying and collecting arthropods, we are collecting a record of the population and species that are inhabiting the Japanese Gulch. Knowing what species and the number of arthropods occur at particular parks will enable resource managers to better plan and implement management of the park's species and their habitats, especially endemic (geographically restricted to that area) species that are dependent upon proper management of their habitats within those parks for their existence. In this regard the service learning reminded me of the biospheres. The biosphere taught us how important species interaction is to ecosystem functions. The flow/cycling of nutrients through the ecosystem, the regulation of populations, and the stability of the biological community, all contribute to the continuation and maintenance of life and this depends on their adaptation and co-evolved relationships. This experience also reinforced the concept that science is about revisions. We had to constantly revise what we did, from find a suitable spot to set everything up, to finding different ways to hang the sheets and hang the lights, and using a black light when mercury didn't work.

1. Do the number of people to visit the park affect the number or species of arthropods in Japanese Gulch?
2. What does a mercury light look like compared to a black light, especially the difference in brightness?
3. How well do tagged moths fair compared to untagged moths?
4. Would the mercury light have attracted more moths or different insect species?