Winter work on the Koltur project
Photo: Agnes-Katharina Kreiling.
For us biologists working on the Biodiversity Project on Koltur, the summers are filled with exciting fieldwork on the island. We are busy collecting invertebrate samples and recording plant and bird species out in nature. But the majority of the work is actually done during the long dark winter months.
Then, all the invertebrates in the samples collected during the summer have to be counted and identified to species. This can be a very slow and difficult process. Many species, for example some wasps (Hymenoptera) and flies (Diptera), are tiny. To be able to correctly identify them, minute characters like bristles and spines have to be carefully examined under the microscope.
And before the process of species identification can even start, the invertebrates in the samples have to be sorted into groups. In one single pitfall trap sample can be hundreds of insects! Luckily, we got help. Biology student Eva Kjæld Hansen is working her way through last year‘s pitfall traps. Half of them are sorted already and we have plenty of insects to keep us busy behind the microscope until the next field season.
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