Imaging the Rhino bot fly (amongst others today). Arguably one of the most endangered species on the planet but ignored by most! A striking fly that’s really quite large! What a fabulous creature
@nhmscience #collections #flies #diptera #botflies #digitisation #imaging
The effect of gull predation on sympatric seabirds has garnered much attention and management action in recent decades. In Witless Bay, Newfoundland, Canada, gulls depredate significant numbers of Leach’s Storm-petrels (<em>Hydrobates leucorhous</em>) annually. We quantified this predation on Gull Island in Witless Bay, and its effects on the storm-petrel population, by estimating the annual gull predation rate using strip transects to count storm-petrel carcasses and predicting storm-petrels’ population growth rate by repeating an island-wide breeding census. Using methods that account for island topography, we found that the Leach’s Storm-petrel breeding population on Gull Island declined to roughly 180,000 pairs in 2012 (95% CI: 130,000–230,000), a decrease of 6% per year since the last census in 2001 (352,000 pairs). Based on carcass counts, gulls, mostly American Herring Gulls (<em>Larus argentatus smithsonianus</em>), depredated 118,000–143,000 Leach’s Storm-petrels in 2012. Studies of storm-petrel recruitment, the contribution of the large non-breeding component of the population to gulls’ diets, and the consequences of gulls’ storm-petrel diet on the gulls themselves are needed to better predict the trajectory of both species into the future.
BBSRC Fellowship Scheme is open! If anyone wants to turn their skills towards plastics & wildlife (methods, pathology, disease) get in touch! Maybe building off our recent paper on #plasticosis (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389423003722) #PlasticPollution #postdocjobs
https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/bbsrc-discovery-fellowships-2023/
Some great books about flies for #FlyFriday!
Flies: The Natural History and Diversity of Diptera, by Stephen A. Marshall https://www.fireflybooks.com/catalogue/adult-books/nature-and-science/insects/product/10637-flies-the-natural-history-and-diversity-of-diptera
Field Guide to the Flower Flies of Northeastern North America
Jeffrey H. Skevington, et al.
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691189406/field-guide-to-the-flower-flies-of-northeastern-north-america
The Secret Life of Flies, by Erica McAlister ( @flygirlNHM )
https://www.fireflybooks.com/index.php/catalogue/product/11384-the-secret-life-of-flies
The Inside Out of Flies, by Erica McAlister
https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-inside-out-of-flies-erica-mcalister/14507633?ean=9780228102878
#fly #flies #diptera #insects #arthropods #nature
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Oh for the love of #flies it’s #TaxonomyTuesday
These amazing females are Clitelloxenia assmuthi & these #Phorids are termitophilous - they live with, & some feed on, termites
This is one of the 190 recorded termitophilous & other termite-associated Phorids - one of the most ecologically diverse family of animals on the planet!
Dr Alex Bond
Dr Alex Bond
Dr Erica McAlister
Bryan Wright