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Collecting Bugs in the Tundra

I became a junior assistant scientist (no decoder ring), helping out setting up some insect collection traps in the tundra. Some pictures of our Science In Action!

Click on the thumbnail images to get larger ones (around 100-300K). Click on the "huge" link to get the full size pictures (around 3M). 33 pictures included.

The Tundra

There are also a lot of mosquitoes there, especially in late June. Protection is required. This includes long sleeve shirts and pants, hats, mosquito netting, and bug spray. Sure, DEET is toxic, but it does work.

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Black Spruce trees are not very large. Either that, or Stephanie is 50 feet tall. There was a swampy sort of vehicle trail we followed before plunging into the forest.

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There are a lot of bugs there. So we had to wear mosquito protection. The first picture is me suited up, and the second is Stephanie in her gear. The third picture is e spongy, mossy tundra floor.

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Another picture of Stephanie in her space-alien anti-mosquito-wear as a silhouette. And one of me in the distance wearing anti-mosquito-wear. Both taken with Stephanie's camera, so the image sizes are a bit smaller.

The Goal: Moose Nuggets

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There were various ferns in the area. They had a lot of horizontal leaves. It looked odd, especially given the odd patterns created by the mosquito netting (obviously not in the picture).

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We spotted some moose tracks in the mud on the trail, which had been driven by some vehicle within the last day. It's hard to tell from the pictures that it has a horse-shoe-like look to it. From the picture, it could be a footprint from a boot, but it is distinctive in person.

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And where there are moose there are moose nuggets. Part of our goal. While searching for them, I tried to think like a moose. "If I were a moose, in the tundra, and I had to take a shit, where would I go?" Sadly, that line of reasoning didn't yield great results.

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Stephanie took some close-up pictures of the nuggets and the moss we later found. Also some pictures of lichen and other plants (or plant-like things).

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There's lots of lichen and stuff on the forest floor. Stephanie was taking some shots of the moss. The dark green moss by her knee in the third shot was the stuff we were seeking, though it didn't have the little fungus-like parasol thingies on it.

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Some more shots of the moss and what it's clumping on. The moss gross on old (at least 1 year) moose droppings.

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More pictures of the mossy floor, and two shots of the little fungus-like parasol things we were seeking. Note that it's moss, it's not fungus growing up through the moss.

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Two close-up shots of the parasol-like thing we were looking for. This was taken with Stephanie's camera with the extension tube her brother had loaned us (poor man's macro lens). It worked nicely. This was the key to the experiement, the goal was to find out the sorts of bugs that were attracted to these things.

The Apparatus: A 2-Liter Pop Bottle

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A picture fo the site, a closer picture of the trap, and a close up of the bottom of it. The bottle was cut in half and then stuffed inside itself. So tehre's a big opening that funnels into a small opening in the top, trapping the bugs.

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Three more snots of the pop-bottle insect collector. High tech science in action!

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