Newsletter of the Biological Survey of Canada (Terrestrial Arthropods)

News and Notes

Matthias Buck and Steve Marshall

Department of Environmental Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1
mbuck@evb.uoguelph and smarshal@evb.uoguelph.ca

The University of Guelph Insect Collection has its roots in the insect collection of the Entomological Society of Ontario, founded in 1863. It is the oldest insect collection in Canada and was, in effect, Canada's national insect collection before there was a Canada and before the establishment of the Canadian National Collection in Ottawa. Although our current collection of well over a million specimens is relatively small by world standards, the University of Guelph Insect Collection remains one of North America's most important heritage insect collections, and is Canada's third or fourth largest insect collection. It is the best collection of Ontario insects, including many irreplaceable specimens of extirpated species. Furthermore it houses an excellent collection of Diptera from around the world, with a particularly good collection of neotropical Brachycera. The collection of Sphaeroceridae is particularly extensive and by far the largest one in the New World.

There are about fifty large (over 10,000 specimens) collections of insects in Canada, of which only ten or eleven house over 100,000 insects, and only four house over one million. The University of Guelph Insect Collection is housed in state-of-the-art facilities provided by the Department of Environmental Biology. Before November 1999 curation was done on a spare-time basis by students and Dr. Steve Marshall, the faculty member in charge of the collection. Since 1999 Dr. Matthias Buck is curator of the collection.

Research at Guelph has various different goals. Perhaps most importantly Guelph is contributing through systematic research and taxonomic revisions to the knowledge of insects, mostly Diptera. Since the 1980’s Dr. Marshall has published a long series of papers on the systematics of Sphaeroceridae (Diptera), a group that is also the main research interest of Dr. Buck. Under the supervision of Dr. Marshall studies on many other groups of Diptera have been conducted by graduate students, e.g. Asilidae (R. Cannings), Phoridae (B.V. Brown), Pipunculidae (J. Skevington), Sphaeroceridae (T.A. Wheeler, I.P. Smith), Chamaemyiidae (K.N. Barber), Clusiidae (D. Caloren, O. Lonsdale), and Tachinidae (X. Sun). Currently the Guelph group is involved in various chapters of the Manual of the Diptera of Central America which will include the first published key to Neotropical families of Diptera.

Another important field of research is the study of the distribution of insects and faunal change in Ontario. In the past Guelph has conducted insect surveys in different Provincial and National Parks such as Point Pelee National Park, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Algonquin Provincial Park, Pinery Provincial Park and currently Ojibway Prairie Provincial Nature Reserve. The long-term involvement with Ontario Parks has been formally recognised in recent years through the annual provision of a province-wide collecting permit and an agreement that sees the Guelph collection as the major repository for specimens from Provincial Parks and Nature Reserves.

Besides systematic and faunistic research there is a strong interest in developing insect identification guides for a broader public. This includes the development of photographic field guides, interactive keys and web pages.

The Guelph Collection is rapidly growing by approximately 50,000 specimens per year. About half of this increase is derived from active local surveys and includes insects of most orders. The other half is collected on research trips abroad (especially to the Neotropical region) and includes mostly Diptera, especially Sphaeroceridae, Micropezidae and other acalypterate families. A smaller but nonetheless very significant part is sorted out from trap residues kindly lent by entomological colleagues.

Since November 1999 locality and collection data of all material newly incorporated into the collection is stored in a central database (BIOTA) and every specimen is provided with a unique identifier. Currently, the available resources allow retrospective data basing of older material only to a minor extent (e.g., for areas currently under survey). Likewise, identifications of specimens are only databased if they belong to a survey.

Because of our strong holdings of Ontario insects and certain Diptera families the Guelph Collection is potentially of high interest to any entomological systematist and faunistic researcher. Material from the Guelph collection has been used extensively in revisions, taxonomic works and faunistic studies. We welcome loan requests from the systematic community and encourage visits from scientists who want to study our collections. The number of type specimens is relatively low in the Guelph collection, mostly because its future seemed uncertain during certain periods in the past and type material was routinely deposited in other collections (often the Canadian National Collection).

The Guelph Collection also plays an important role in the identification of pest species. In the last couple of years two major new introductions of insect pests to Ontario, the Pea Leaf Miner (Liriomyza huidobrensis) and the Swede Midge (Contarinia nasturtii), were either identified here or identification was facilitated through establishing contact to experts. The collection is also used by the Pest Diagnostics Clinic of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) to verify identifications and for consultation in taxonomically difficult groups.

The Insect Collection is also heavily involved in both undergraduate and graduate teaching. Outside the University the collection is used in museum displays, school tours, special interest groups such as naturalist societies, extension services, and a myriad of other ways.