Entomology Joensuu

Entomology is a branch of zoology focusing on insects. Here we present insect research currently taking place in Joensuu, Department of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

Edible insects

Anu Valtonen’s group has started a new project to study sustainable harvesting of an important edible insect in East Africa. Insects are consumed all over the world. They provide nutritious and possibly sustainable alternatives to meet the global demand for food and feed. We focus on African bush cricket Ruspolia differens, a valued food source in countries around Lake Victoria. This species is economically, culturally, and socially important, as it provides income and nutrition for rural communities. Despite its importance, limited knowledge of the species’ ecological requirements currently exists. R. differens swarms twice a year and at this time it is harvested using light-traps during the night, with reports of declining yields in recent years.

In this project, we combine local surveys and sampling with molecular methods and remote sensing data to (1) describe current harvesting and population trends, (2) to improve our understanding of especially the vital source populations, and (3) to develop a sustainable management and conservation plan for R. differens, in close cooperation with several partners at Ugandan universities and institutes.

Researchers: Anu Valtonen, Saskia Wutke, & Coen Westerduin

Insects, food webs and ecosystem restoration

Insects are all around us and they have important roles in different ecosystems. They have functional roles e.g., as pollinators, herbivores, prey, predators, parasites, and parasitoids. Insects are therefore an important group to consider when ecosystem restoration occurs. The focus in ecosystem restoration has traditionally been vegetation recovery but it is not the only aspect to restore.

We have studied butterflies in a restoration age gradient in a tropical rainforest in Uganda. By collecting lepidopteran data from both adults (fruit-feeding butterflies) as well as caterpillars and their host plants and parasitoids, we aim to illuminate the recovery patterns of fruit-feeding butterflies and plant-caterpillar-parasitoid food webs. For the latter, we utilize DNA-based methods to unravel these previously cryptic interactions featuring several highly diverse insect taxa.

Researchers: Anu Valtonen, Coen Westerduin, & Eveliina Korkiatupa

(Dark) diversity of Diptera

Jaakko Pohjoismäki’s research group is focusing on biodiversity of Diptera, using integrative DNA-based methods, where DNA barcoding data is combined with morphological identifications. A huge portion of Earth’s biodiversity is still unknown, especially within less-studied, tiny-sized, and extremely diverse taxa, such as Diptera and Hymenoptera. These “Dark taxa” are out of reach of traditional morphological methods, as they usually lack easily exploitable morphological cues. One such taxa is phorid flies (Diptera: Phoridae), which is considered to be one of the most diverse insect groups globally. Our aim is to use of DNA barcodes (COI, and a few nuclear markers) alongside morphology to shed light into this taxon and create a reliable reference library for Finnish species and provide new tools for species discovery.

We are also performing metabarcoding using Nanopore’s PromethION sequencing platform, where our aim is to test this platform’s eligibility in species inventory tasks using long-read DNA barcodes. For this project, we have collected samples across Finland using Malaise trap approach and have extracted the DNA non-destructively. As of now, the sequencing step is still on-going.

Researchers: Jaakko Pohjoismäki & Jiri Vihavainen