I’ve been back for just over a week now, from an awesome trip to Denver for the Entomological Collections Network (PDF) and Entomological Society of America annual meetings. My lab group presented several talks and posters, which you can read about soon in Carolyn’s post (and congrats to her for being runner up for the 2017 President’s Prize!), and overall it was a fun and exciting event. There were many highlights, of course, too many to discuss in one post, and ECN and ESA seem more vibrant and diverse than ever. We also got important feedback regarding our presentations and the research issues we’ve been exploring here at Penn State. A couple thoughts, while they’re fresh in my mind:
(1) Non-human visitors in the museum. What’s normal?
We’ve established a rigorous pest monitoring and IPM strategy here at the Frost (SOP 2 of our policies and procedures), and we presented some of our results and questions (DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.5566732.v3), including results of a short IPM survey we sent to ECNers. We’re still analyzing the responses and feedback, but a couple things are clear:
- The community wants more science-based collection IPM recommendations. It may be difficult to do this robustly, given the heterogeneity of collection environments, but I definitely see opportunities for fun undergrad experiments.
- Our collection room has more outside “visitors” than most museums. Another mission of this survey was to gather the data we need to argue for better space. Given how “leaky” Headhouse III is, I think we have a reasonable argument for more secure space. More on this later.
(2) Entomologists are excited about ethics
In another poster we provided a new version of the Insect Collectors’ Code (calling it an “oath” made it less approachable, according to one ECNer) and solicited feedback from the ESA attendees. People seemed to be quite enthusiastic about this project! We provided copies of the Code as small booklets (PocketMods; DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.5613052.v1), and they went like hotcakes. Yay! We have a manuscript in the queue to be published at American Entomologist and are contemplating a second one that goes into more depth on each issue. Stay tuned.
(3) November is a bad time of year for my health
Seriously! For the second ESA trip in a row I was ill. In 2015 is was some epic cough/throat ailment, and this year it was the worst eye infection I’ve ever had. This is pretty much how I looked at the meeting, with massively bloodshot eyes:
There was no end of accusations that I was under the influence of a certain narcotic plant that is readily available in Denver. Sigh.
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