rachelleung's Journal

Just from comparing Arroyo Seco from when we first visited and when I went again, it tells us that the time of the year that we visit different areas will highly differ in regards to what we will find and see. There were a lot more insects while the temperature was warmer outside. It also helps that different plants in the area were blooming. Also, any missing groups like preys or predators is an indicator of that the other group is missing. If the preys are missing, we will not find any predators. Since predators have to feed on something, if there is no prey in the area, there is no reason for the predators to remain in the area. If there the area is missing predators, it is an indication that there is a lack of prey. Even though the two groups in a sense work against each other since the predators are always chasing after preys, in a sense they work together in terms of the food chain.
Climate change however is affecting the number of organisms found around the world. Any decline in any organism will have a detrimental effect on the food chain. As stated, "Our results seem to be consistent
with the idea that long-term climate stability is known to have a key role in promoting
persistence of biodiversity in an area" We will want the biodiversity in area to thrive because even though many organisms seem to be unrelated to each other, they work together to build the food chain. Any sort of disruption can highly affect it since it is a complex network that supports one another. While it is impossible to reverse what has already been done to the climate, we can still slow down the effects.
The decline in insects will affect many services we take for granted. As stated, "Loss of insect diversity and abundance is expected to provoke cascading effects on food webs and to jeopardize ecosystem services" These services include nutrient cycles and pollination. We may not realize it but insects take part in a lot of services, like bees being the main pollinator. If we do not take care of their population we will be highly affected.
The increase in temperature will definitely disrupt the relationship between organisms. It is stated, "These findings suggest that more extreme fluctuations may disrupt host-parasitoid synchrony, whereas moderate fluctuations may improve parasitoid fitness." The relationship between insects will be affected, thus affecting the food chain as well.
Many work has already been done to map out the food web in different locations. It is stated," We can
expect our catalogue of insect species, and their ecological traits, to expand significantly in the foreseeable future, thus providing opportunities for macro-ecological studies of insects which are already commonplace in taxonomically better known groups such as tropical vertebrates." If the work continues, we can see how one affects the other. We would also be able to see which insects play a more major role than others so we know which to focus on to protect.

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I revisited Arroyo Seco to collect picture of plants. There were many honey bees in the water and in the plants near the water. This was odd to me because the plants near the water were mostly vines, I thought that bees would only be interested in flowering plants for their pollen and nectar. I also found it odd that there were many bees in the water. I understand that bees need to drink water as well but the number is really odd. I suspect that there can be traces of nectar and pollen in the water that came from surrounding plants. But that is not likely because it is winter right now and hardly any flowers are blooming.
Aside from the bees, there were also a lot of flies near the water. This was odd because the water seemed the same from when we first visited but the number of flies and bees have hugely increased.
There was also a lack of insects compared to when we first visited. There were many different insects last time, mostly spiders, praying mantis, and blue-green sharpshooter. But this time we were only able to find a few extremely small spiders and around 2 blue-green sharpshooter, there was no praying mantis at all. There was also a lack of other insects like assassin bug which we were able to find last time. This can be due to the time of the year. When we last visited, it might have been the middle of fall but it is winter when I visited again.
The number of bees have been declining rapidly due to the use of pesticides. As stated, "Through it all, the loss of honeybees has continued apace, with an average of 30 percent of hives dying every year. Classic cases of CCD – in which the bees literally vanish – are now relatively uncommon. These days, beekeepers often find dead bees in or near the hive, implying that whatever is killing them is doing so acutely – or the colonies slowly dwindle until there is nothing left."We need to stop this from worsening as bees play an important part as pollinators. They basically build the food chain, they help spread pollen to different areas as they collect nectar. The plants and flowers then grow, providing food and shelter for other organisms and further build up the food chain. Without them, we will be losing a lot of plantations and hence severely disrupting the food chain which will ultimately affect humans as well.
Some other causes of the decline of bees is the change in land-use and global warming. As stated, " These studies show that a combination of habitat destruction, agricultural
intensification and the associated loss of floral resources, climate change and exposure to pesticides
and pathogens drives the loss of bee populations and may negatively affect the pollination services they provide." Humans are directly causing the decline of bees. It is our responsibility to resolve the issue because the decline of bees will affect plantations, animals, eventually humans will be affected as well.

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My last observation is on Marsh Park. In this location, I noticed an odd amount of lady bugs and asian lady beetle. The two look highly similar. Tee difference between lady bugs and asian lady beetle is that lady bug is a huge group of insect and asian lady beetle is a type of lady bug. There is a significant difference in their appearances. Both of them have the signature red as their pattern. Sometimes they have dots and sometimes they do not. One major difference is that asian lady beetle has a longer body, it is not as round as other lady bugs. Also, asian lady beetles have a pointier head compared to other lady bugs.
We easily caught up to 10 lady bugs when we visited. This means that there is a high amount of prey in this area. Most lady bugs eat aphids. We did not notice any aphids but they are really small so we might have missed it. But it is guaranteed that there is a large amount of them due to the large amount of lady bugs. Aphids are considered pests because they feed on crops, hence destroying them. Lady bugs act as exterminators as they feed on aphids, saving the crops as a byproduct when they feed on aphids. There were many healthy plants in the area which I believe is due to the lady bugs feeding on the aphids.
Aphids is a huge issue because they can affect any crops. It is stated, "Association of recorded aphid species with medicinal plants suggests either these aphid species have adapted most of these plants as their regular secondary hosts or reservoir hosts to tend over the period when their food crop host plants or preferable stage thereof is not available.In either case, these beneficial plants would suffer both quantitative and qualitative loss associated with aphid infestation" Aphids will move on to other plants if the one they are used to is no longer there thus causing a huge issues for humans because will will be losing a lot of crops. Keeping lady bug population steady can assure that aphids can cause little to no issues. As stated, we are not simply losing crops. Plants with medicinal values will be affected as well so it is important to protect lady bugs so they can lower the number of aphids.

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The second location was focused on Arroyo Seco. In this area, there were many praying mantis. We found around 5 praying mantis which is odd because we did not find any of them in all the other 4 locations. There were also a lot of different kinds of spiders. This is an implication that there is a high amount of preys in the area. There are several implications to this situation. This is an ideal environment for praying mantis and that there is many food available. Spiders are usually predators among other insects, but comparing spiders and praying mantis, the praying mantis becomes the predator. These two predators will compete against each other for food.
We also found a lot of blue-green sharpshooter in the area. They feed on vines. This area is the perfect location for them because there were many vines living on the sides of the water. The soil was really rich which also helps the vine to thrive and survive. Most importantly, the blue-green sharpshooter serves as food for bigger insects like the spiders and praying mantis mentioned previously. Blue-green sharpshooters are much smaller in size compared to the predators so naturally they will become the preys. One interesting I noticed about them is that they come in two different colors, blue and green. After some research, I was still unable to explain why they come in different colors. My assumption would be it is based on their gender but this is unlikely because this would have easily come up in the research if it was true.
After some research, I learned that sometimes praying mantis are released into gardens as a means to pest control. It is stated, "For many years, the oothecae of non-native mantids have been released in gardens in the USA as a tool for controlling garden insect pests (Hurd 2008). However, the beneficial effect of these predators has been questioned (Antonelli and Glass 2004, Meyer 2010)." Most of the time praying mantis prey on smaller insects, they sometimes would even prey on each other and smaller vertebrates like small birds and lizards. While they are able to remove pests, they can bring negative effects as well. They are able to completely wipe out insect populations in an area if too many praying mantis is introduced. Therefore it is best to not disrupt the biodiversity in an area by introducing new insects.

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My first observation is made within my house. There were always a few cellar spiders living at the corners of our ceilings so we have to assume that there are smaller insects that live in the house because the spiders needs to feed on something to survive. However, we never seem to see what exactly those insects are. Therefore we could assume that the cellar spiders have been doing a great job at keeping the house pest-free. Occasionally, some flies get into the house when we open the doors to the outside. Most of the windows are closed and we never find fly bodies so we could assume that the cellar spider has ate them as well.
There was a sudden increase of moth in the house due to the dried-food and rice we have. We have been finding larva crawling in these places. At night we would find a lot of moths flying in the house, there would be a flock flying out of the oven when we open it because that is where we store the dried-food. There would also be a few flying around in the bag of rice. Then I noticed an increase of cellar spiders in the house. There used to be around 3 in the whole house. But then now there is at least 1 in every corner that is near the window, they tend to stay at the corners near the windows. There were also an increase of spiders that were not cellar spiders because these had really thick legs and different patterns. After realizing that there are more cellar spiders, I also realized that there was a decrease in moths. Due to the increase of food supply, there was an increase of spiders. Then after the spiders increased, there was a decrease in moths. My next assumption would be that the number of spiders will decrease because the amount of food has decreased.
Many people will remove the spiders because they keep leaving webs in the corners. However, these spiders are beneficial as they can get rid of pests and even other more dangerous spiders. It is stated, "One beneficial aspect to these pholcid spiders is that they often eat other spiders and are quite capable of killing and eating black widows. In fact, you may often see a pholcid spider web in close proximity to a black-widow web. It is just a matter of time before the pholcid kills and consumes the black widow. There is no reason to kill these spiders." While it may bother some people, the spiders should remain where they are to get rid of other pests.

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My focus on this project is the phylum arthropoda. I chose this because it is one of the few groups that I few confident that I will find enough observations. They are found almost everywhere, even in households so they are easy to find. I will be focusing on the implications of relationships between different species. Sometimes the relationships are not direct. Quite often, we would only be able to find the predator but unable to find the prey or vice versa. However, we know that both of them are present because the prey provides enough food for the predator, while the predator assures that the prey does not overpopulate in a given location.

I chose this group also because their important role in maintaining the food chain. Insects are at the lower end of the food chain. A lot of other organisms feed on them to survive so that they could support the group above them. Even though finding insects in some areas is sometimes unpleasant(ex. house), they are crucial in the food chain. Moreover, a lot of insects act as pollinators to help us spread plants around so that we could have a green environment.

As of now, many cultures already consume insects as one of their main sources of protein. However, this is not a popular habit in Western culture. With the current decline in different organisms, I believe in the future that it will become a habit that we consume insects. Therefore it is important to maintain their numbers to use as food in the future in case we come to the point where insects become a major food source. It is stated, "The above indicates the wide range of possibilities available for ramping up the use of aquatic
insects for food." There are many insects that can be consumed. We can work slowly to increase the number of insects so we do not cause a rapid change to the food chain thus keeping it stable.

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