SCOTLAND

Project title/name: Conservation Strategy for Specialist Insect Faunas

Country : United Kingdom

Project location within the country: Loch Lomond, Western Scotland

25,000 US$

Short project description: Provision of research and monitoring services to study the minimum habitat requirements necessary to conserve specialist insect faunas.

Description of the research programme: Given the importance of specialist insects in terrestrial biodiversity, there is surprisingly little information on their conservation biology. This study is part of a wider research programme which investigates the importance of habitat size and isolation on the distribution of specialist insects.

Donor: MGM, University of Edinburgh

Department: Division of Biological Sciences, Edinburgh

Client: MGM

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Title of consulting services provided: Survey of Specialist Oak Insects on Islands of Loch Lomond.

Description of services provided: The Company has undertaken a survey of the specific leaf-mining and gall-making Arthropod faunas utilising oak leaves on islands of Loch Lomond which differed in the size of tree populations and extent of isolation. Over 15,000 leaves were analysed revealing 31 species of arthropod. These included mainly leaf-mining larvae of micro-Lepidoptera and gall-forming wasps of the family Cynipidae. The islands of Loch Lomond appear to have a fairly full complement of specialist arthropod species irrespective of tree population size. Numbers of spangle galls decreased in larger tree populations possibly due to larger numbers of insect parasitoids. Results of the study were published in the Entomologist's Monthly Magazine (Vol 133:101-106).

Staff provided: Ms. K. McKay BSc. (Ecologist); Dr M.G. Murray (Biodiversity specialist).

September 1994

June 1995

9,000 US$