This a short summary of the work achievements of 2020!
During the last year, I have co-authored 15 papers, got a citation award, and reviewed 30 times for several journals (without counting personal requests).
The first of these article was published in Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment together with Ezequiel González and the entomology group of the University of Prague leaded by Michal Knapp.
Because of climate change, the risk of seed germination failure is getting higher in many crops. This is surely bad news for the farmer; but the consequences on biodiversity and ecosystem services are unknown. We investigated what's going on in these field defects!
Not long after, the first paper from my Israeli post-doc was published in Journal of Insect Science. We described a novel technique to sample insects and arachnids from trees.
Studying arthropods without killing them is possible.
A trunk refugia operating on an acacia tree
Zamarada torrida freshly emerged. The caterpillars was found in a trunk refugia exposed in Evrona Nature Reserve, Israel.
A bee nest built inside a trunk refugia exposed in Evrona Nature Reserve, Israel.
Heriades sp. bee emerging from a trunk refugia (see photo above).
The publication activity continued with a paper on a citizen science experiment performed across Europe. This was an outcome of my post-doc in Denmark.
The use of data collected from citizen science is becoming increasingly more popular. In this paper, we measured predation pressure and insect herbivory on oak trees across Europe. For the predation rate assessments, we used the artificial sentinel prey method (the focus of my PhD project!).
And a series of paper together with a Chinese group and Prof. Gabor Lövei was published in Pest Management Science, Insects, and Diversity.
In spring, Prof. Gabor Lövei and I got great news. Our review Lövei & Ferrante published in 2017 was awarded as the most cited of Insect Science in 2019!
This is the first review of the sentinel prey method using real and artificial prey to quantify predation rates by vertebrate and invertebrate predators alike in several habitats. In this work, we discussed the use of sentinel prey, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using real and artificial prey, and provide recommendations to enhance standardisation and therefore, comparisons between studies.
And then, two articles coming from my short Danish post-doc stay at Flakkebjerg Research Center were finally out. In the first article, we identified Lepidoptera species that could be potentially affected if GM maize were to be grown in Europe.
In the second article, we evaluated whether urbanisation has an effect on ground beetle body size at the community level and showed a strong effect only on forest-habitat specialists.
Later, the second, the third and fourth articles produced during my Israeli post-doc were out! In the first, we analysed the ground-active spider community of the Negev desert (samples collected 30 years ago!). We showed that spider communities in the same habitats were more similar to each other, regardless of the geographical distances between sites.
In the second, we work in Evrona Nature Reserve, a very special hyper-arid ecosystem in southern Israel (https://marcoferrante.wixsite.com/marcoferrante/post/evrona-nature-reserve-israel). Acacia (Vachellia) trees are keystone species in this ecosystem, but their populations are declining due to high mortality rates. Bruchid beetles destroy the seeds and are one of the major factors of mortality of Acacia seeds. We quantified seed predation rates on hanging and already fallen pods from Acacia trees that were affected, and not, by two large oil spills (in 1975 and 2014).
In the third article, we investigated the effects of oil pollution on the hymenopteran parasitoid community associated with Vachellia (formerly Acacia) tortilis and V. raddiana.
Then, the first Azorean article was published in Journal of Pest Science, although there has been a mistake in the proofs, and it will be cited as Lamelas López & Marco! Sigh.
I believe (and hope) that non-lethal sampling methods will become increasingly popular in ecological studies. We demonstrated the usefulness of camera-trapping to correctly identifying vertebrate pest species in vineyards and to determine their consumption rates and daily-activity patterns. We also evaluated if detection events were a good proxy for consumption events and whether camera-trap videos and camera-trap photos provided consistent results.
The last article, another outcome from the Israeli postdoc, will officially appear in 2021. Here we demonstrated the benefits of sustainable practices alternative to the use of herbicides in vineyards to support the natural enemy populations (particularly of parasitoid wasps!).
Finally, another cooperative article where artificial sentinel prey (among other things) were used all across Europe to explore macroecological patterns in plant-hervibory-natural enemies interactions.
So, not all that bad indeed. Let's hope that the next year will be as productive! :)
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