Since the Maine Bird Atlas wrapped up, many of us having been looking for more citizen science projects to get involved in and I’m happy to help announce that the Maine Flower Fly Survey (MFFS) is launching this year!
Herb Wilson, Ron Butler, and Beth Swartz are coordinating a new project sponsored by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to examine the distribution and flight seasons of an important group of pollinators, the flower flies (Family Syrphidae).
Here are some notes shared by Herb:
The flower flies are a fascinating group and more common than one might think. Many of them are dead-on mimics of bees, bumblebees, wasps and hornets so can easily be passed off as hymenopterans.
Unlike the butterfly and bumblebee projects, the MFFS will rely only on photographed specimens, to be posted on iNaturalist. Your phone will be adequate for taking pictures of most species.
If you are interested, the full announcement and registration link are here:
Like many insects, Flower Flies are in decline. As part of his 2022 report (summary here) detailing arthropod declines in Maine, entomologist and University of Maine professor emeritus Dr. Francis Drummond wrote that Flower Fly surveys “[S]howed decline in total abundance over the sampling period from 1882-2020, with the decline appearing to start in the 1970s. The number of species or species richness showed no evidence for decline from 1882-2020. When the most common species . . . were investigated, 6 species showed evidence of decline and 1 showed evidence of increase.” Maine Audubon led the project, which was funded by the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund, and researched by Dr. Drummond. For more on Flower Flies, read this blog post from December about Three Insects Added to Maine Species of Special Concern List
And get ready for the MFFS by watching our training video on how to use iNaturalist:
