Jan's BioArea BE by Jan Ruymen https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca Nature never goes out of style. en-us 2019-01-11 09:21:24 UTC 2025-11-18 23:45:13 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/icons/Xmastree.png My BioArea: Demervallei /BE2400014 ruymenjan https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/319590952 2019-01-11 09:33:43 UTC https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/319590952 ruymenjan https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/319938596 Predator-prey connection (Falco peregrinus & Columba palumbus) @ Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels]]> 2019-01-12 11:32:06 UTC https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/319938596 ruymenjan https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/319943090 Sub-populations]]> 2019-01-12 12:56:35 UTC https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/319943090 First parasitic organism in my BioArea: ruymenjan https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/320079441
Entomophthora cf. muscae

First parasite is one I found myself this year in the Demervallei. It is a funghi called Entomophtora muscae. Entomophthora muscae is a species of pathogenic funghus in the order Enthomophthorales which causes a fatal disease in flies. It takes over the brains of the host and let it climb to a higher place, puts it wings up in the air and then the fly dies. Soon after a fly dies from infection with this pathogenic fungus, large primary conidia are produced at the apex of a conidiophore which emerge from the intersegmental membranes. When the spores are mature they are forcibly ejected and may fall onto flies resting nearby.]]> 2019-01-13 18:37:16 UTC https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/320079441 Second parasitic organism in my BioArea: ruymenjan https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/320079821 A parasite I saw lots of times in the Wildlife Refuge I worked some years ago is the Deer Botfly - Cephenemyia stimulator. I looked some more information about this parasite in this course now.

They are large, gray-brown flies, often very accurate mimics of bumblebees and  are beautiful insects (and the fastest flying insect!), but they have a disgusting way to reproduce.
The "shoot" their eggs during flight (!) in the nostrils and pharyngeal cavity of members of the deer family. The larva of infesting the stag, is called a stagworm.
However, without any exception, stags are found to have maggots living inside the head, and the habitat of these creatures is in the hollow underneath the root of the tongue and in the neighbourhood of the vertebra to which the head is attached. These creatures are as large as the largest grubs; they grow all together in a cluster, and they are usually about twenty in number.

]]> 2019-01-13 18:40:31 UTC https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/320079821 Cucujus cinnaberinus, a species with an ecological niche that I found in my Bioarea. ruymenjan https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/324075644
This coleoptera is on the red list of iucn and is labelled as "near threatened". It lives in dead hardwood trees such as oak, poplar and black alder that are standing in wet soil. 
The flat-shaped beetle is living under the loose bark of the dead trees. It is very rarely found in open space.
Poplars have been planted all over Belgium, especially in the (wet) valleys. Nowadays lots of the these trees are dead and the Cucujus cinnaberinus has a growing population.

More information:
https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/5935/11921415

I made this photostudy myself! ;-)
]]> 2019-01-24 18:32:46 UTC https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/324075644 Microon sahlbergi is the second species with an ecological niche I found in my Bioarea. ruymenjan https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/324092578 I'm sorry for the bad picture, but this is a really small creature. It is between 1 and 1,5mm  long. Probably that's one of the reasons why this little beetle is only found for the third time ever in Belgium by me. Apart from that, this creature is bonded on a very rare species of plants,  Six-stamened Waterwort (Elatine hexandra), that itself has a niche that can be found in my Bioarea. It is found in ponds that are/were used in fish farming. The pond is emptied once a year to catch the fish and the drained soil is the place the Six-stamened Waterwort is growing. Microon sahlbergi is laying its eggs inside the flower and the larvae will cause very small galls on the plant buds. 2 species with in ecological niche in once! ;-)

https://waarnemingen.be/waarneming/view/163096384?lang=en&local=be
 
]]> 2019-01-24 18:58:30 UTC https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/324092578 Two organisms that share the same food (niche partitioning) and the way that they manage it; ruymenjan https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/324132819 The Stethophyma grossum is a grasshopper that is living in wetlands and wet grasslands. The spider that feeds on it is the Argiope bruennichi by building a web in higher grasses. They catch grashoppers, flies en dragonflies in it. This grasshopper is one of it.

Second species that feed on the Stethophyma grossum is the Lanius collurio. A bird that was extinct in Belgium since mid 1990's. Fortunately the population is again rising since 2012 and it's going rather fast! "Thanks" to climate change, lot's of insects, as grasshoppers are doing rather well in Belgium (only in nature reserves that is!), maybe the Lanius collurio is taking advantage of that!

As a matter a fact, also the Agriope bruennichi is growing in numbers and yes, the Lanius collurio is feeding on these spiders too.

]]> 2019-01-24 20:12:20 UTC https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/324132819 Trophic pyramid. ruymenjan https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/324154620 My piramide that represents an ecological coherence that is present in my bioArea! ]]> 2019-01-24 21:08:24 UTC https://padlet.com/ruymenjan/ggb8iwi09fca/wish/324154620