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Many thanks for the offer. Will see how the collection goes this spring. I don't think I'll have any issues making the 300+ samples and yes definitely against pointlessly pinning samples. My views on collecting for science have evolved as I've begun to appreciate the critical role of collections in documenting invertebrate diversity. There are some great re-wilding initiatives going on but we can only manage those if we've got good information about positive changes in biodiversity and at least for invertebrates this means collecting. And to be in a position to do this we need trained entomologists with experience of collecting and documenting the collections.
JoePablo-
I fully get that, plus it’s an invaluable genetic resource to look at things like cryptic speciation, new phylogenies and adaptive mechanisms - all of which essentially you have decades/centuries of snapshots of thanks to collections. What the NHM/Sanger are doing with the Darwin tree of life project is amazing too.
If you haven’t already - join RES as a student member!
jupiz
No - we have a wax moth research colony. We do have a research apiary here too, so can chat with the manager there if there’s anything we can try collect?
Not big here on pointlessly pinning wild samples so fully agree, but we have lots of lab moths we dispose of. If they could be of use would be happy to send.