HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

On their Thompson Island field trip, Brian Joo '08 (left) and Israel Figueroa '09 collect bugs with an aerial net. (Staff photo Emily Berl/Harvard News Office)

Education met hands-on science on Boston Harbor's Thompson Island on Oct. 9 as roughly 100 Harvard undergraduates fanned out from beach to beach collecting insects to be included in a new database of Harbor Island insect life.

The students, part of biology professors Brian Farrell and Missy Holbrook's OEB 10 class, "Foundations of Biological Diversity," spent a warm and sunny October day combing the island, literally beating the bushes and scooping up all types of insects in nets.

Farrell, who led the excursion, said the trip served several purposes. First, it exposed students studying biological diversity to the most diverse group of animals on the planet. The nearly 1 million known species of insects are more than all other animal species combined.

"They sampled a couple of hundred million years of diversity with a swipe of the net," Farrell said.

The collecting also gave the students a taste of entomological fieldwork even as it furthered Farrell's collaboration with the National Park Service to build a database of insect life on the islands that make up Boston Harbor Islands National Park. Holbrook will lead the class's next field trip Oct. 28 to study plants at the Harvard Forest.

The students brought back 100 plastic vials, each containing 30 to 40 insects, Farrell said. The vials were filled with ethanol to preserve the insects and then chilled on arrival on campus, preserving DNA for later analysis.

Farrell said he was surprised at the extent of the haul, which he said could contain as many as 200 different species, some of which could be new to science or, given Boston's long history as a port city, to this part of the world.

"I predict we will find not only new species, but species new to the Western Hemisphere," Farrell said.

Farrell himself was enthusiastic about the trip, but his excitement was matched by that of the students, who dove into thorny bushes looking for insects and who fearlessly plucked bumble bees from nets and dropped them into collecting jars.

The group gathered at 7:30 a.m. near the Science Center for the subway ride to the harbor, drawing more than a few stares for the nets and vials and other gear they brought along with them. They were picked up by the Outward Bound ferry and brought to the island. Outward Bound, an outdoors education organization that runs educational facilities on Thompson Island, supported the trip. The students left the island around 5 p.m. for the trek back to campus, laden with sample vials.

"We were quite a sight," Farrell said, adding that it was nice to show students a different side of the city. "This is an urban campus, yet we have these wonderful secrets [the harbor islands] in our back yard."

Both the trip and the insect inventory collaboration with the National Park Service are modeled after Farrell's longtime work in the Dominican Republic. Farrell has been collecting insects there, leading field trips of Harvard students, and collaborating with Dominican students and scientists in a nationwide insect survey. Farrell's goal is to complete the first comprehensive survey of a country's insect life.

Along the way, he has been creating a treasure trove of information about the Dominican Republic's insect life, including an online database of insect species, high-quality photographs of the insects they've found, and educational materials, such as large posters showing off the dramatic colors and otherworldly shapes of the native insects.

Farrell said the model has worked well in the Dominican Republic, attracting scientists interested in the knowledge generated, students interested in educational opportunities, artists interested in the aesthetic beauty of the insects themselves, philanthropists, policymakers, and others.

At the invitation of the National Park Service, Farrell first visited the harbor islands two years ago with his Museum of Comparative Zoology neighbor Pellegrino University Professor Emeritus Edward O. Wilson, and others from the Island Alliance, an organization that supports the Boston Harbor Islands National Park. Farrell and Wilson recognized the opportunity for blending science, education and outreach. The National Park Service agreed and funds from philanthropic sources quickly appeared to support a postdoctoral fellow, Jessica Rykken, to oversee the research, conducted together with Harvard undergraduates in Farrell's lab.

The team is now applying the Dominican model in Boston Harbor, including creating a database and educational materials for Boston-area schools.

But before the glitz and glitter comes the hard part. Farrell said that for each hour in the field, entomologists take as many as 100 hours analyzing and cataloging what they've found. It may not be as much fun as tromping around an island on a sunny day, but the work is just as important as collecting.

As part of their analysis, OEB 10 students will examine the DNA of a parasite that is found in 20-30 percent of insects. Called Wolbachia, the parasite is known to distort sexual reproduction in the insect hosts. Because different insect groups have different strains of Wolbachia, examining the parasite's DNA should help researchers better understand the evolution of the insects that bear it.

Farrell said studying Wolbachia will help to drive the point home to his students that, biologically, an island isn't necessarily the same as a geographic island. Different types of Wolbachia can exist within particular insect species, and the insects themselves may be limited to certain vegetation types, and the vegetation to a particular geographic island.

"It's a situation where there's islands within islands within islands," Farrell said.

Related links:

Dominican insects make natural art: Harvard entomologist brings nature's beauty to the public