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Bugs in the system – scientist tunes in on creepy-crawlies
Dave Chesmore is an electronics expert who records how insects talk to each other. Sheena Hastings reports.
DAVE Chesmore inherited a love of insects from his father and grandfather. A passion for finding and identifying moths, grasshoppers and hundreds of related and unrelated species grew up with him alongside an interest in technology and engineering.
Although his degrees and doctorate are in the field of electronics, his expertise in entomology is almost of a professional level, too, and he's a fellow of the Royal Entomological Society.
In his capacity as senior lecturer in electronics at York University, he spends much of his life developing techniques and equipment to record and identify insects and distinguish one species from another.
His PhD from York was awarded for work in the area of speech communication via radio, focusing particularly on how
to improve last-ditch communication. This led on to building technology that would gather sound data in the field, the use of computer technology to distinguish different insect sounds, analysing sounds using frequency, and building an electronic library of insect "voices" to which new recordings can be compared.
He and his research team are now working with colleagues in the Far East in the development of a hand-held device, similar to a Blackberry, which can listen to an insect or bird sound and instantly identify the species to the user, via a display. This field of work is known as computational bioacoustics.
In Japan, similar devices are being developed as an educational aid, to train children to identify birds. In the future, the same gizmo will almost certainly be able to display pictures as well. It can also be used by scientists and conservationists to pinpoint previously uncharted sites of rare species.
But the uses of such equipment lie not just in education, recreation or in the field of conservation, says Dr Chesmore. The Government is funding some of his research, in the hope that it will become a crucial weapon in the detection of alien invasive insect species, such as the Asian Longhorn Beetle, a pest which kills off deciduous trees by feeding on them from the inside.
Such invasive species are potentially disastrous for the countryside and agriculture, so the research could be of great economic importance. Invasive species do sometimes enter this country despite strict quarantine rules and inspections, often via imported plants destined for garden centres.
"We can use the technology to pinpoint the presence of larvae like the Asian Longhorn Beetle, which do make small sounds undetectable by the human ear. They feed in wood, making a clicking sound when they bite.
"Imported plants and trees can be monitored using the device, which can hear from the outside of a tree whether the larvae are present inside it," says Dr Chesmore.
Another application is using the detector to listen for endangered species such as stag beetles, whose larvae also feed inside trees. "Stag beetles can be found in tree stumps, often in semi-urban areas. To prevent the beetles being destroyed by someone getting rid of the stump, the device can be attached to it for a few days to detect signs of insect life and also identify them. It could be self-powered using solar energy."
In the meantime, insect enthusiasts are submitting recordings of wee beasties to the experts in increasing numbers, says Dr Chesmore.
"Ten years ago, maybe 30-40 people a year sent us moth records to identify. Now we get well over 100 sending recordings and sightings of thousands of moths each year. It's definitely getting more popular, maybe because people are generally more aware of the environment."
As part of National Insect Week (June 23-29), Dr Chesmore will give a talk, Listen to the Conversations of Insects, on Tuesday, June 24, from 6pm-7.30pm, in the Nottingham 04 lecture room at York St John University, Lord Mayor's Walk, York YO31 7EX. Admission is free and there is no need to book.
For information about other events, including butterfly walks, children's bug hunts and dragonfly safaris, visit www.nationalinsectweek.co.uk
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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