ABI 150- Section B- Damselflies in the field
Our minutes:
This Tuesday we chose our research question(s): How do damselflies use permanent and semipermanent wetland habitat? How is habitat used differently by unique species in one ecosystem? We’ll be studying both Pacific forktail and Vivid dancer. Congrats damselfly team! Thank you for having solid methods in mind. Given that our damselfly team had already collected some preliminary data, we spent Friday collecting data as a class at Yolo Bypass.
Here are the sheets we used to collect data. Thanks to Kendall for making the sheets for us!
Before splitting off into groups, MC Kendall gave a quick overview of the data sheet and how we should approach filling each section out. She also established that our aim today was to test our variables and methods out as a class and talk about the pros and cons. Then our classmates Jay, Mario, Rosie and Jessica gave us a quick demo on identifying our two damselfly species, how to handle them, how to mark them, and some capture techniques.
When the damselfly team collected their preliminary data, they found that the perimeter of parking lot F has a decent amount of specimens for capture. They also addressed some concerns about finding what colors work for identification without attracting predators. Also that it would be important we find the correct placement for marking.
So we started off collecting together as a class at lot F, and work these kinks out.
Debriefing after this session, we talked about how we need to standardize perch height, as well as adding ovipositing as one of our variables.
Next, we decided to explore lot A and B separately as groups!
While Group F stayed at the lot to do their data collection, Groups A and B went off on their own to lots A and B. We were given different colors to mark based on the lots. Group A was able to catch and mark about 6 damselflies. They found a good amount of damselflies as well as noted some of them on the water. They also noticed while observing that some dragon flies were bullying the damselflies. Group A was also lucky enough to find some frogs :)
Group B had difficulties capturing damselflies due to the wind. They were able to capture and mark about 5 damselflies. One of the five was marked with sharpie but it looked like it ripped their wing and their wings may have been stuck together. It’s likely the ink of the sharpie was older, because it was difficult to actually print anything on the wing. They did notice a few damselflies flying above the water, in search of food possibly.
Alejandra from group B shoutout: she was able to observe some behavior at lot B. She found two damselflies mating (or attempting to)!
Group A ended up at lot B, and both groups decided to go to hunters check station together. The water we saw two weeks ago here has dried up quite a bit. No damselflies:(
Groups A and B moved to lot E to see what they could find. It’s mostly seasonal wetlands at lot E. No luck finding many damselflies here except for 1 we marked pink.
Group F surveyed this small strip at the F lot. They caught 57 damselflies! They re-spotted some they had marked already. They said they even captured ones we marked shortly after our arrival to Yolo Bypass!
They found a few dancers, but mostly forktails. They first decided to observe the damselflies for about an hour. They noticed females sitting perched most of the time. When males approached them they would “shoo” the males away. They also noticed a few males setting territories. After these observations they started capturing! They noted that a difficulty they faced was keeping track of damselfly groups.
In our discussion, some of our peers suggested that it would be a great idea to also include the size of their abdomen into our data because there was variation in the sizes we saw. We also discussed how we should consider weather into our data because some of us experienced difficulty in capturing them as they seemed to be moving much faster with the wind.
We also discussed our experience marking the damselflies. Some state that it was incredibly difficult to make anything more than a dot with the pens we purchased. While group B actually had some luck writing with fine tip sharpies. There seems to be concern about ripping wings with fine tip sharpies though. We need to solidify our technique asap.
We’ve become aware that dispersal of damselflies is something we need to research because its a big part of our aims for this study. Crystal found an article stating the damselflies don’t disperse very far away. Mia pointed out that dispersal has to do with body size. Group F reported that they had found some damselflies disperse quite far from their original location.
It also came to our attention that it would be great to be able to mark the coordinates of where we caught the damselflies and not just the general area in which they were found.
Now that we have started our data collection, we need to solidify our aims and solidify our variables. There are many different opinions and concerns. I want to listen to all of them. We can’t move on without this sorted out because next Friday 5/1 we officially start data collection.
Homework
Read today’s blog.
R4 due Tuesday at 11:59pm.
Fill out the Google form I provided by Sunday night. Link will be on discord. I'm expecting 15 responses. Please contribute and voice your opinions so everybody goes home satisfied on Tuesday!
Comments
Post a Comment