The Little Things That Run the World – Mountain 12nd edition

Goals

1. To create awareness on the diversity and importance of invertebrates
2. To improve proximity and public perception of invertebrates – from bugs to animals; from undefined bugs to named animals: beetles, dragonflies, flies, bees, wasps and so on
3. To reduce fear and disgust from bugs
4. To raise awareness to key roles of invertebrates and ecosystem services
5. To share and discuss the genetic results of BGE first two years
6. To identify a topic and a narrative for the group paper based on the genetic data from BGE and on the interests and concerns of the participants

Content

WHAT (CB – concepts)
Diversity and importance of invertebrates
Scarcity of specialist to study invertebrates: Red list of Taxonomists
Biodiversity Genomics Europe: what happened in the last two years:
– Sampling
– Training
– Playing
– Producing genetic data

Freshwater invertebrates: ecological role and biomonitoring
Watermites (and their neighbours) sampling in practice

HOW (CB – concepts, training)
Sampling methods: introduction
Sampling methods: practice in the field collection, sorting and observation on the digital stereoscopes
Molecular tools to study invertebrates: DNA barcoding and DNA metabarcoding: eggs game

ACT (CB – concepts, tools)
Is there space in science for citizens: Tools and Initiatives (iNaturalist/BioDiversity4All)
Conservation in action: discussion of results and what would the group like to analyse from the dataset and what questions would they like to answer. Defining the narrative of the paper and the roles of each participant and the next steps.

PLAY TIME (CB – concepts, available tools, creation of tools)
Game: DNA barcoding with eggs – what animal this egg belongs to?

Header:  Participants during the ‘The Little Things That Run the World – Mountain 12nd edition’ in Portugal. Images by: BGE / Associação BIOPOLIS – CIBIO; CISE – Centro de interpretação da Serra da Estrela.