The image above shows (from left to right), Prof. David Mifsud, Dr James Ciarlo`, Prof. Giorgio Sabella, Dr Fabio Viglianisi, and Prof. Christian Mulder.
Dr James Ciarlo` is a Marie Curie European Research Officer at the Institute of Earth Systems. PALEOSIM is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship focusing on the climate and land-use change impacts on arthropod habitats of small islands. The arthropod group consists mainly of insects (but includes other animals such as spiders and centipedes), all of which play vital roles in the ecosystem (such as pollinators and decomposers), and thus are important indicators of ecosystem integrity.
The presentation, entitled ‘Ecological Niche Modelling of Insects in the Circum-Sicilian islands from the Last Ice Age to Modern Times’ was given at the Zoological Museum of the University of Catania, and moderated by Prof. Christian Mulder. During the talk, Dr Ciarlo` explained the ongoing research of the project and invited the audience to download the app, Epicollect5, and contribute to the citizen-science program of PALEOSIM.
The objective is to have volunteers actively contributing towards data collection of arthropods observations, which will be used in the analysis of the project. The volunteers are encouraged to take photos of insects (and other arthropods) that they observe in the natural habitats of the Circum-Sicilian islands (the chain of small islands around Sicily, including the Maltese islands) and log them in the app to mark the location of the observation. The GPS position of these observations will be used to assess the preferred environmental conditions of these animals and study the impacts of climate change on their habitats. The recording of the presentation was shared online and an article was later published on the UNICT magazine.
The trip to Sicily also marked the beginning of an observation campaign into the Circum-Sicilian islands. This requires Dr Ciarlo` to conduct field-work on several islands in the region to observe and log (using the citizen-science app) arthropods in their natural habitat. For this objective, Dr Ciarlo` and Prof. Mifsud were supported by Mr Arthur Lamoliere, a Research Support Officer at the Institute of Earth Systems associated with the FAST Project [Twitter, Facebook], who’s current task involves gathering and organizing information about non-indigenous organisms in the Maltese and Sicilian archipelago. Mr Lamoliere provided technical and scientific support during the following days of field-work. The first locations of field-work were in Sicily (Vallone piano della corte, Zona bassa del parco del Etna, Bosco di Malabotta) and were led by Prof. Sabella and his colleagues. Afterwards, the team from the Institute of Earth Systems continued their fieldwork in Lampedusa where they observed and logged, several species of beetles, as well as bees, wasps, ants, spiders, and several other animals.
The upcoming work for PALEOSIM includes additional field-work on other Circum-Sicilian islands, as well as high-resolution climate simulations of these islands from the last glacial maximum to future scenarios. Although a lot of research will be done on a computer, Dr Ciarlo` emphasises that the photographic component of this project has revealed a beautiful aspect often overlooked in the world of insects, and whilst he encourages people to participate in the citizen-science program to help the project, it may also reveal to them a new level of appreciation of our own environment.
For more updates on the project and upcoming events, follow PALEOSIM on Facebook.