![]() Morphology describes the scientific examination of a creature’s form, just as biodiversity describes the extent of biological variety in all living species. Graduate biologist Michael Heethoff is part of the ecological networks work group at TU Darmstadt, where one of the ecologist and entomologist’s fields is a morphological study of biodiversity. The ‘DISC3D’ (Darmstadt Insect Scanner 3D) focuses, quite literally, on insects, capturing every facet of them and enabling the Darmstadt Insect Scanner to play an important role in preserving knowledge of the various species. However, a similar effect, yet with distinctly more scientific profundity, can now be produced using a technical device developed by a collaborative project between the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences (h_da) and Darmstadt Technical University (TU Darmstadt). We read of how bees’ untiring busyness is utterly essential to Nature, and to our species as well, but that they are dying out of an alarming reduction in biodiversity as a result of catastrophic levels of intensive farming, for should we fail to curb certain aspects of our behaviour patterns, we can be sure the generations to follow will never meet most of the many insect species that swarmed around us as children, landing on our own, outstretched fingers. Insects are crawling, scuttling and flying into the public gaze with increasing tenacity, as their huge significance to the planet’s well-being bores deeper into our collective consciousness. Moreover, its working method renders the Darmstadt insect scanner globally unique. Working together they have developed a device that can help to preserve insect specimens which would otherwise be irredeemably lost. ![]() “This technology will improve collaborations within the global taxonomy and museum communities and help scientists demonstrate the value of these collections.A collaboration between opto-technicians at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences and ecologists at Darmstadt Technical University has spawned results far beyond expectations. ![]() “The larger project is as cutting-edge as anything in the natural sciences, and is a great boon to South Dakota science capacity,” Johnson added. “Scientists will be able to identify and recognize species more effectively, know where they are, and discover new species in the ever important exploration of biodiversity.” “This will be a major contribution to gathering biodiversity data and being able to analyze what’s happening,” Johnson said. Johnson and Rita Velez, collection manager, will do beta-testing of the scanning robot to figure out how to best use the robot to image their specimens and to identify glitches in the equipment or software as they add collection information to the database. “This robot can increase the efficiency and decrease the cost of gathering this data,” Johnson said. This fall, each collaborating institution is testing a prototype robot that can scan more than 100,000 specimens in a week, gathering information that would take three to four years to compile manually. Eight SDSU graduate and undergraduate students have worked on this project during the last three years. Until now, data have been collected and entered manually, Johnson explained. That combined information is then uploaded into national and international databases so people can use it to analyze geographic and ecological patterns. “By using advanced imaging technologies, we will have 3-D explorable files for analysis,” said Dr. ![]() The project seeks to create a database of the specimens in natural history collections, automatically transcribe the data on the specimen labels, and take digital images of each specimen, Johnson explained. The InvertNet Project, led by the University of Illinois in Champaign, involves 21 other universities and two natural history museums, one in Milwaukee and the other in Pittsburgh, together containing more than 60 million specimens. The work is part of a 10-year, $100 million National Science Foundation grant to capture images and specimen data from millions of natural history specimens at institutions throughout the country and to provide greater information access to researchers and other stakeholders. A robot capable of scanning a tray of insect specimens in a few minutes will help make the virtual images and tagging information available to the public online, according to South Dakota State University entomologist Paul Johnson, director of the Severin-McDaniel Insect Research Collection. ![]()
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