Berlin: Arthropod diversity in 2020 (Corona year)

von wirthstef

I documented my nature excursions in 2020 via photography and videography with a special focus to animal macros (outside in the field) and to drone flights. There is also an underwater scenery existing. Most footage was recorded in the area between villages Lübars and Rosenthal in Northern Berlin, close to the nature refuge „Tegeler Fliess“.

The area is characterized by fields, meadows and forest parts and lays along the former GDR wall, today being a hiking and biking trail. Due to a connected mosaic of different ecological habitats, a remarkable biodiversity can there be found, even despite of the worldwide species‘ extinction based on a mostly human made global warming.

My videographic review of the second part of the Corona-year 2020, focussed on arthropod life on meadows in Northern Berlin, all copyrights Stefan F. Wirth

Some few sequences were recorded in other parts of the green city Berlin, namely in the park of the Charlottenburg Palace (beginning sequences of the video) and in urban park Rehberge und Plötzensee (the leaf beetle Galeruca tanaceti in Plötzensee and the scarabaeid beetle – systematically related to genus Cremastocheilus- in Rehberge). Crematocheilus (Cetoniinae) is a genus of myrmecophilous beetles. My individuals were not yet determined, Their existence in Berlin might be even of scientific interest. As putative phoretic vector (to carry mites for their dispersal), they are at least of interest for me, although the studied three beetle individuals did not carry mites at all. The beetles were all found in front of an ant nest intrance (Lasius niger) along the roots of an oak tree in park Rehberge.

As my scientific/ photographic/ videographic excursions happened in exactly that year, 2020, in which the normal human life came worldwide totally out of order based on the covid-19 pandemic, I decided to add this topic to the concept of my video. The video presents nature footage from my visit in the correct seasonal order, beginning with May and June, followed by July, then September/October. In front of each of those months-blocks, I added at that time some important recent news headlines about the corona-pandemic. I named these written parts „corona calendar“. The few December sequences are only dedicated to human street life, showing Berlin in the total lockdown phase, being filmed in black and white (with red recognition).

Berlin, 2 January 2021, all copyrights Stefan F. Wirth