Beetle Census

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Volunteers are on a mission to survey all the beetle species found on SERC’s Edgewater campus in Maryland. You’d think we know everything there is to know about beetles, but we don’t! There are roughly 400,000 described beetle species on Earth. Scientists estimate there could be over a million more still to be discovered.

Since 2018, volunteers have been going out every year using a variety of methods to find beetles, estimate their abundance, and better understand their role in the ecosystem. This data will enable researchers to study the changes in the SERC’s beetle community over time, assess the overall ecological health of different parts of SERC’s campus, and be able to use it as a baseline or comparison to other places. 
 

The What and the Why

Charlie and Sue Staines are looking for beetles by inspecting a net and putting them in a plastic sampling bottle.

What are we trying to learn? 

We want to determine what beetles are on SERC’s campus, how many there are, and what role they play in SERC’s various ecosystems. 

Why do we care about beetles? 

Beetles are a type of insect, and insects are important! While many folks are raised to think of insects as pests, insects are vital to our ecosystems and ultimately human well-being.

Insects are found in every conceivable habitat and have many different functions important in sustaining the balance of ecosystem processes. Insects play all sorts of roles and in the United States, so much so that Losey and Vaughan found that insects contribute ecological services that amount to $57 billion dollars (learn more in their BioScience article)! Plus, insects can help be environmental indicators, helping us assess whether or not an ecosystem is working and is balanced, or is broken. 

Because there are so many beetle species, they can be great indicators of what is going on in the environment. Understanding which beetle species are and are not on SERC’s Edgewater campus, where they are, how many there are, and what they are doing can help us better understand the greater environment. 

Ultimately, understanding beetles can help us better understand ourselves, our impacts on the environment around us, and help us see where we need to restore and steward.

Methods

  • Charlie Staines and Erin Allen bend over and peel back parth to look for beetles.

    Volunteers Charlie Staines and Erin Allen search for beetles by peeling back bark on a downed tree. 

  • Charlie Staines walks through a clearing swinging a bug net through the vegetation.

    Charlie Staines uses the sweeping method to find beetles on short vegetation.

  • Charlie Staines holds white cloth underneath a green-leaved branch and hits the leaves with tools.

    Charlie Staines uses the "beating" method to get beetles on a branch to fall into a sheet he holds underneath. 

  • A Malaise trap set-up on dead grass and leaves. It black fabric suspended similar to a tent - held up with metal poles.

    A Malaise trap for insect collection. The set-up encourages insects to move up and into a central collection area underneath the fabric. 

  • A hite bed sheet hangs on a string between two trees at night with a black light shining on it in the middle

    A black light on a white sheet is used at night to survey for beetle species.

  • Charlie Staines uses a dip net (net on the end of a long wooden poll) to search for beetles in the water.

    Charlie Staines uses a dip net to survey for species on or in the water.

Every year volunteers led by Charlie and Sue Staines go out and use a variety of sampling techniques, including sweeping vegetation, pitfall traps, flight intercept traps, checking under logs, peeling bark from fallen branches, and sampling aquatic habitats with net and flotation techniques. 

Data

In 2023, Charlie and Sue identified 143 new species, bringing the campus total to 955. So far in 2024, they are now up to 963 and hope to reach 1,000 species by the end of 2024.

A line graph showing how the total number of beetle species found each year increases. From 2018 to 2023 the species has increased from 113 to 955.

In 2024, Charlie and Sue are working with the Spatial Ecology and Conservation Lab to start a new ground beetle study at the BiodiversiTREE site on SERC’s campus, where a 100-year-long experiment is being done see if tree diversity (less or more) during restoration affects the ecosystem.

Get Involved

*We are not currently accepting new volunteers*

We hope to recruit volunteers in 2024, and will announce when we do via the Participatory Science eNews. 

Sign up today.