Thesis timeline

Here is the short version: TOO LONG.

Now for a little bit longer version: TOO LONG, but it may end.

And for further details:

My graduate studies have had a few breaks here and there. I didn't go to any classes for an entire year. (I did attended one class, but I didn't get credit.) I got married in the middle of one semester. I went through a strange change in my program of study and traded out one committee member for another the next semester. I still really like this former committee member (Hi, Cliff), but I moved from a thesis in Science Education to one outside of Education. Next up, there's no financial assistance during the summer. There's a year for you.

While I've been in school I'm sure I could have done more along the way, but some of the time has seemed to slip on by. After babies being born (we've got two you know) and Laura's surgeries following having babies (she's had two you know), I lost a little bit of time to just taking care of the family. Laura wasn't supposed to be lifting our girls for a good while after each surgery. Some class loads have been heavy some semesters, and it's hard to work your TA hours part-time and study full-time and see your wife at least some-time.

And then there is the total work load. ¿Who knew that there would be so much work to sorting all of these bugs? So many people have put some time into these bugs:
- a dozen and then some undergraduate students
- at least four graduate students
- 30+ secondary science teachers.

Some people have put in less than 10 hours. Others put in a few hours a week for a semester. A few have committed to a solid 10+ hours per week for more than a semester. I have no idea how much time I have spent with these bugs, but I'm sure I've pulled every sample out of every bag at least once, if not twice and many of them 3 or more times. SO MUCH TIME.

here are the numbers:
- 11 Orders of insects
- 13 Orders of arthropods
- 44 families of flies
- 66 overall taxa
- 71 samples sorted completely, and another dozen partially but we won't use their data.
(one bag got lost somewhere that we did want to sort, but what can you do.)
- Over 81% of the individuals identified was a fly of some sort. In non-scientific terms, you could say that we had "a lot" of flies. (one, two, many, lots).
- 62,497 individuals have been identified, and sized. (a few estimates were done with a couple of groups, but seriously... i checked the accuracy of our estimation procedure and 62,497 is the number I'm sticking to.)

I personally had gone through all of the samples at least once by Friday, March 5th. By then, every insect had a name label connected to it. There were bugs that still needed to be sized after that, but all of them were named. ¿Didn't I tell you that our experimental design guaranteed that every bug was going to get handled at least twice? YEESH.

Since March 5th I've consolidated multiple spreadsheets, corrected spelling errors from all of the different people who have entered this data on to a computer, and tried to make one coherent body out of this information we've collected. Spreadsheets, pivot tables, databases, statistical and community analysis software. With scientific names, there is a high propensity for misspelling. Misspelling really makes your data come out wrong when you're trying to explain how many groups of things you have caught.

I also spent time going back and identifying insects that were named wrong the first time through. There are a few names that I knew gave other identifiers problems. There were a few names that I knew that gave me problems. I got smarter, so I went back to as many of the problem children as I could find.

I have made quite a sum of graphs and charts this last month and a half. Today, I slapped some of the results together into PowerPoint. I had my Defense of Research. The Defense of Research is with your committee members. I basically got to say, "Here is my data so far," "This is how I plan to analyze it," and the committee tells me what I REALLY should be doing instead.

We collected in two habitats, during two summers, with two types of traps. From what I've analyzed so far the habitats are significantly different, the years are probably significantly different, but trap type doesn't seem to matter.

My committee likes my data. During the defense they wondered if I could do both a methodology paper (trap types) and a diversity paper from my data. Then, right at the end I remembered that I had done a bunch of Jaccard's similarity indices with my data. ¿Why did I do that? Nerd is the answer. The abundance analysis (#s of individuals per category) in my presentation says that habitats are different, but the richness analysis (# of types of bugs) using Jaccard's says that habitats are very much the same. My little "oh, yeah" at the end of the defense gave my committee even more reason to consider two publications. And if we don't get two publications, we lump the whole study into one submission and try again.

Here is some other good news. I was going to do a species listing of Bombyliids (Bee Flies) from the Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument, but my current data will give me enough to graduate. I didn't present any data on the Bombyliids today, and my committee was fine with that. Riley would like me to finish my work, but my Master's will not depend on finishing the Bombyliid study. I can sort Bombys after I submit my thesis at the first of July. It would be good for me to work for another publication or two and I know too much about Bombys to just let them slip away. Above all, it's nice to know that I don't have to also have all of that sorting done by the end of June, in addition to writing up all of this work.

All week long I was working out how I was going to discuss the Bombyliid issue. I got exactly what I was hoping for: A place to work on those bugs if my time works out for that, but I can still graduate without knocking down that next mountain before July.

Here's to defending my thesis at then end of June. Whew!

Insects: It's whats for dinner

Dr. Riley Nelson, one of my academic advisers, hosted an informal potluck dinner for the the Entomology Class, the Entomology Club and assorted members of his lab. Attendees were invited to bring bug-themed foods. Most items were in the form of bugs: sandwiches pinned and labeled like bugs in a museum, foods decorated with legs, or even just labels on the food to remind you that some bugs have those shapes. Laura and I brought chips and salsa because... well... chips and salsa.

There was also one food item with plastic bugs embedded inside, but one brave girl actually fried some meal worms she'd bought at the pet store. Here in the States, mealworms are pet food. Elsewhere mealworms are sometimes people food. The little dish was passed around to everyone. With a little peer pressure more than half of the folks had a crisp treat. They tasted like a burnt chip.

After eating a couple myself, I had one more that I handed Maggie. She held it in her hand for a while. I saw her taste it a couple of times still holding it in her little fist, but by the time we got her out of the car at home she was finishing chewing up her little treat. That's when I let Laura know that Maggie was getting a little extra protein in her diet.

If you go here, you can see a few pictures and descriptions of bugs eaten around the world from Man Eating Bugs: the Art and Science of Eating Insects by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, a good book. A google search for the book has many of the pages and photos online. (The photo for this post came from Menzel and D'Aluisio's book.)

I like it

I do like cool paper. It's part of why I took a bookbinding class at the University.

I also like bugs.

I think I'm a little partial to green too.

This little guy* is pretty cool.

You can check out the story here at NPR's The Picture Show blog.

!ORAGAMI!

* Leaf Katydid, by Brian Chan

Bugs and Trousers

all is calm on the email front and i get a one-line email from a friend.

"Dave – I have a question to ask you. Do bugs like trousers?"

then i'm left to sit there and wonder what inspired that question.

i am the TA for the entomology course this semester, but when that information is usually shared the reaction i get is, "Oh, bugs... hmmm..." it's as if most people are reacting as if they have almost stepped all the way into an oversized mud puddle. they're hoping to back track and if they don't say another word i won't bump them off that precarious edge into the scary abyss that is the world of creepy-crawlies. with just a one-liner and no context, i chalked that email up to the sender's tendency for corny jokes.

"as for bugs and trousers... i'm waiting for the punchline.", i respond.

the next email to me was essentially, "Actually, I was kind of hoping you'd have the punch line, but I can see how you are going to make me figure it out instead of just giving me the answer."

apparently my assumption was wrong. i try and excuse my poor judgement.

i thought that the "bugs and trousers" bit was another one of your corny-joke fits. i was waiting for you to send the punch line. and then when i don't have a response to your question, you say:
...I can see how you are going to make me figure it out instead of just giving me the answer.
i don't know what you mean, but apparently, things make sense to you. i'm happy for you. i can only think of one reason why you might be asking me about bugs and trousers, and i'll be sending you more information right away.

after having a little more time to think things through, i remembered that i had sent out an email to some friends about six months prior. maybe my roommate, the person who first introduced me to this positor of questions, had told her to ask me about bugs and trousers. one quick search in gmail and the answer to the original question was on its way.

Subject: Contemplating the Myrmecological Connection to Trousers

PANTS!!!

ANTS!!!

those six months ago i had the simple urge to draw an anteater and send it to some friends. maybe my roommate had decided that i hadn't sent the picture to enough people, and had suggested to the questioning one that she ask me a question sufficient to direct the picture her way too. i was satisfied that i finally got things right.

the reply to my solution:

Subject: just because you use words no one else knows like myrnamologicallisterson doesn't mean you are cooler than me

sheesh. you ask a simple question and get some sort of sarcastic remark back! i was being absolutely sincere! however, i see now that i should have added some clarification to the question about why bugs dig trousers...

...Have you ever noticed that when people tell a bug story, somehow trousers are always involved? weird bug + trousers = really entertaining story...

...i'll take my bug questions elsewhere next time...

somehow, i had failed AGAIN! ¿how often do people use the word "trousers"? that word was in the original subject line of my email with the drawing and in her question. i thought for sure i had solved the puzzle, but instead i had let someone down a second time. i was almost starting to question my own validity as an entomology instructor. for my own personal pride i needed to find an answer to "bugs and trousers".

so, i thought for a while, and gave the question a third try at a solution.

right now i can think of two categories that may help to explain the frequency of the bug-pant nexus.

1. the legs may just be more amenable hosts

• legs are the body part that have only the feet between them and the ground. some bugs may choose the overland route and on to a foot and then the pants. plenty of people wear pants that brush the ground too.
• as people wade their way through daily life, maybe our lower extremities are permitted to brush up against more things without our notice: leaning our hips against what ever surface may support our weight; the little things that brush against our legs as we walk.
• even though most bugs have wings, gravity still applies. a bug may fall or be brushed off of a surface, and they are just landing on whatever is below. the probability of hitting pants on the way down is just a matter of topography.
• pants are often thicker, and the lower portions of our pants typically hang loose off of our limbs. maybe there is less chance for us to feel the little critters crawling across the surface of our clothes and we perform less subconscious grooming. in addition, hands can brush off arms, shoulders, torsos, heads and hips much easier than the legs on down.

2. maybe the pants surface makes bugs more visible
granted, i just mentioned that maybe we notice less when it comes to bugs on the lower half, but some of those final ideas in the first category still may apply to this one.

• a bug that we don't feel (and thereby may be subject to less subconscious grooming) may have more of a chance to get into visual range, or more of a chance to get into a perceivably threatening proximity.
• a bug on our back may come and go before we've noticed it's presence.
• when we sit, a good portion of our legs become a horizontal surface, and much easier to inspect than other body parts.

i'm not sure how you could test these hypotheses, but i think it is sufficient to say that the likelihood of bugs just being inherently attracted to some platonic ideal of pants might not be the most parsimonious deduction.

maybe i was thinking too much.