biologe

Blog and online journal with editorial content about science, art and nature.

Tag: 2019

November 14, 2019

Drone flights: Worth seeing nature around the fields of Berlin

The metropolis Berlin is the capital of Germany and much more than that. It represents an unusual green city. When using elevated viewpoints to watch the cityshape, then at least in summer visitors of Berlin can receive the impression of being in the midst of a greening huge landscapes with several villages in between.

 

Green areas in Berlin

 

 

Indeed related to other metropolitan cities of the world, Berlin is still partly not very densely populated and covered by remarkable huge natural countryside instead. The area of landing and runway strips of the former airport Tempelhof for example up to date represents the largest coherent green area inside a city worldwide. The so called Tempelhofer Feld was after the termination of the air traffic exposed to renaturation and is currently a very popular recreational park. It’s located in the South of the city.

Also the West and South-West partly represent nature reserve areas and are covered by the big urban forest Grunewald.

 

Meadows and wetlands in the North of Berlin as nature refuges

 

I am since two years discovering the Northern parts of Berlin, which according to my random observations (in comparison with other Berlin areas, such as Tempehofer Feld, Teufelsberg (Grunewald) and some urban parks in the center of the city; examples of species will be visible on my corresponding blog article) bears the greatest biodiversity in bloom visiting insects.

 

 

 

Mosaic of different landscape types close to each other

 

 

 

 

 

This is seemingly due to the complexity of different meadow-, field-, wetland- and bog-habitats, being originally shaped by the Weichselian-glaciers. I regularly visited the stream valley of the so called Tegeler Fließ with the lake Köppchensee. It’s a hilly area with different gradients of sunny slopes with partly Mediterranean climatic conditions, surrounded by different kinds of wetlands. This area is well known for its great biodiversity.

 

Between the villages Rosenthal, Lübars and Blankenfelde

 

But my drone flights present vast tracts in the South of that stream valley, consisting of fields, green meadows and wetlands. It is the area between the Berlin villages Rosenthal, Lübars and Blankenfelde. Inner urban agriculture is rare in metropolian cities worldwide, in Berlin there is only a small agriculture area in the South (Dahlem Dorf) and the fields between the named villages in the North.

 

Drone flights and bloom visiting insects

 

 

Fields and meadows with adjacent forests and wetlands in the North of Berlin, September 2019, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth. Please give my video also your like on Youtube.

 

Most part of the footage in my film represents the fields adjacent to the village Rosenthal. I newly discovered the partly quite tiny meadows between and adjacent to agricultural fields around Rosenthal this summer and discovered an impressive and steadily visible diversity of bloom visiting insects there. Fields as monoculture habitats usually bear a smaller biodiversity related to wild-growing nature zones. But due to the connection of the edges of fields with complex nature refuge zones around, I could observe a quite great number of species on closely adjacent meadows and even the natural border zones of these agricultural areas.

 

Videographic details

 

The footage was captured in 4K and D-cinelike quality using a Mavic 2 Zoom drone between September and October 2019.

 

 

Berlin, September/ October 2019, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth

 

Ein Kommentar
November 11, 2019

Different wing colors in a harlequin ladybeetle specimen

The ladybeetle Harmonia axyridis is naturally distributed over eastern Asia, but was imported to the United States already at the beginning of the 20th century as pest control. At first, there was no population development in the open fields. These were at first reported from Louisiana in 1988. In 2001 the first free living specimens were for Europe discovered in Belgium. Since then the beetle distributed over several European countries, such as France, entire Germany or Switzerland.

 

Variations of Harmonia axyridis

 

The beetle is well known for its great form variations. Worldwide more than 200 different color pattern forms of thorax and elytrae are described. They are distinctly shaped and maintain in this shape and arrangement of pattern. But four forms dominate within natural populations. Speaking about the elytrae (not the thorax patterns), the reddish form with dark spots, as visible in my film, is one of them.

These distinct different forms must be named a polymorphism and are based on genetic information as well as on environmental conditions, such as temperature, humidity and light intensitivity. According to that even the term polyphenism might be adequate.

 

 

 

 

Transcription factor pannier responsible for color pattern polymorphism

 

According to the work of M. Gautier et al. (the genomic basis of color pattern polymorphism  in the harlequin ladybird, Current biology, 28, 20), the transcription factor pannier is responsible for the genetically based control of this polymorphism. They discovered that different pannier alleles determine the color pattern in the different known forms. The authors furthermore report that pannier was never found before to play a keyfactor role in the pigmentation of insects.

 

Ladybeetle species on a meadow in Berlin

 

The specimen in my footage was discovered on an urban meadow in the park area „Nordhafen“ in Berlin. It’s a meadow in autumn predominantly consisting of lucerne and clover, sorrel and yellow field cress. Different ladybeetle species could be in greater numbers found there between September and October 2019. The sevenspot-ladybird, the adonis ladybird (Hippodamia variegata) and most abundant the harlquin ladybird in all its developmental stages.

 

Asymmetrical wing colors and possible explications

 

 

Harlequin beetle specimen from Berlin with asymmetrically colored wings, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth, please like my video also on Youtube

 

The most conspicuous character of „my“ harlequin ladybird specimen was its distinct asymmetrically colored wings (elytrae). One side reddish with black spots, the other side brownish with black spots. During my research about such asymmetries in ladybirds, I didn’t find recent studies, which distinctly focussed on that topic. H. E. Roy et al. reported in their book „ladybirds“ (original version 1989, revised version 2013) about the existance of such differently colored wings in the same specimen. They emphasized that the phenominon was not studied in detail, but assumed different factors being eventually responsible for such a development of a beetle individual: 1) disruption of pigment production, 2) mitotic mutation in early development, 3) environmental conditions, eventually influencing the colors of an originally normal developed young adult (exposed for longer time to different light intensities etc.). The latter might in the case of „my“ specimen being an indeed possible factor, as it is clearly visible that also the brownish wing has at its edges some of the reddish pigments.

 

 

Filming/ photography conditions

 

The beetles was filmed and photographed under artificial conditions in a soil and grass-set in my video lab. There, mites of the Gamasina (Parasitiformes, evtl. mostly Laelapidae) were common. They interestingly showed a phoretic behavior by quickly climbing onto the wings of that ladybeetle. They obviously recognized it as a suitable carrier to new habitats. I assume ladybeetles in the field not being of much attraction for phoretic dispersal, based on their life-cycles and preferred habitats.

 

Berlin, September/ October 2019, Copyrights Stefan F. Wirth

Ein Kommentar
Februar 4, 2019

Eudicella colmanti – Mating behavior of a colorful beetle

Rose chafers represent a group of colorful beetles, which taxonomically belong to the Scarabaeidae and thus are relatives of famous beetles such as Scarabaeus sacer, well known for rolling dung into balls and for being an important symbol for creation and the rising sun in the ancient Egyptian world. Even the stag beetles are more distant relatives of rose chafers.

 

Colorful and active during daytime

 

Unlike some related beetle clades, rose chafers are usually active during the day. This is also indicated by their very colorful bodies. Colors in insects can have different functions, but they usually all are optical signals, which require a visibility in the sun light. Greenish colors are common in rose chafer species and might have optical inner specific signal functions, but also might support an optical camouflage. This would also make sense in the preferred habitats of the adult beetles, which usually feed on softer parts of blossoms and on their pollen. But they also feed on fruits, whereby mostly liquids are incorporated as the chewing mouthparts are not very well developed.

 

Tropical rose chafer Eudicella colmanti during its copulation behavior, 4K videography, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth.

 

Tropical rose chafers from African countries

 

About 3000 species of rose chafers are known, of which most inhabit the tropical zones. The about 20 species of the genus Eudicella are more or less restricted to the African continent.

Eudicella colmanti is native to Gabun, Kamerun and Kongo, thus a species with a main distribution in Central Africa. But E. colmanti is like other species of this genus worldwide often kept in terraria, although species like E. smithi are more common inhabitants of this kind of artificial habitats. They all can be more or less easily reared.

 

Specific flying mode and copulation behavior

 

This is why I was able to study behavioral characters in detail. And rose chafers indeed show interesting behaviors. They for example perform a unique way of flying. It is a specific character of rose chafers (a so called apomorphy) that they fly with closed fore wings, which cannot be opened as in other beetles.

I documented in my video the mating behavior of a beetle couple. Interestingly this was not too difficult, although both genders can, when separated from each other, react to disturbances with a high agility.

 

Almost permanent copulation activities

 

But in the copulatory position, they accepted to be removed from their terrarium to the filming set and even stayed in position, when they were enlighted from different positions with very bright light beams. Please note the the female, which I observed regularly actively searching for a position underneath the male (behavior not clearly visible in my footage). But it also conspicuously never stopped feeding (on an apple) during the copulatory process (very well visible in my footage), obviously to obtain enough nutrients for the production of eggs. A copulation in my couple is not a unique event, but is repeated regularly and can take hours.

 

Phoretic mites

 

Both genders carried bigger numbers of mites. These were phoretic deutonymphs of the taxon Astigmata (Acariformes, Acaridae). As never determined the mite species, as it was not clear, whether it represented a natural associate of these tropical beetles, or whether it was a species native to Germany, which for example was carried into the terrarium via Drosophila flies.

Copyrights Stefan F. Wirth, Berlin March 2017/ February 2019

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