Meeting 1136 Minutes

Minutes from the 1136th Meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club

President Jess Walden-Gray called the 1136th meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club to order at 7:40 pm on Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at MCZ 101. Approximately 22 members and guests were in attendance.

Old business: 4 people were voted into membership. Jess reported on a field trip to Wachusett Mt. organized by Scott Smyers.

New business: The redesign of the CEC website is up and running at entclub.org. New nominations: Bruno de Medeiros, Georgia Shelton, Guohua Huang, and Sharon Stricher

Our speaker was Sam Droege from the USGS Pautuxent Wildlife Research Center who presented a talk entitled “The Natural History Gap”.

Can natural history collections be combined with inventory, monitoring work and statistics to create a useful and comprehensive body of information? SD is a biologist who works on native bees and birds and was an organizer of the first BioBlitz. He made a strong case for the value of ongoing inventory and monitoring programs.

SD pointed out the scarcity of documentation that makes it hard to assess changes in insect populations that are needed for studies of threats such as climate change and invasive species. He detailed some possible low-cost approaches to meeting the need for inventory and monitoring programs, including federal/state partnerships and “citizen science” volunteers working with professional support.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:15 for discussion and refreshments.

Respectfully submitted,

Andrea Golden, CEC Secretary