For a neighborhood naturalist, pictures goes hand in hand with science

How does a mathematician flip into an odonatologist? (And what the heck is an odonatologist?) Emily Luebke can let you know all about it. 

A love of the outside led math main Luebke to change into a photographer of wildlife, particularly bugs. That led her to a fascination with dragonflies (in science phrases, order Odonata), which led to a profession in ecology and an avocation as a citizen scientist—not essentially what you’d anticipate from a numbers individual and aggressive final frisbee participant (extra on that later).

Luebke grew up in semi-rural Albemarle County. “I was outdoors a lot, and played a lot of sports,” she remembers. She went Carleton College in Minnesota, partially as a result of the college had an 800-acre arboretum subsequent to campus, the place she might lose the tensions of academia within the woods. After incomes a math diploma, Luebke pursued a doctorate in operations analysis (superior arithmetic) at UNC Chapel Hill; she additionally met her husband David whereas they had been each taking part in on Darkside, the college’s final frisbee workforce. Jobs at UVA introduced the couple again to Charlottesville, the place Luebke selected to “retire” to lift their three youngsters (and sure, assist begin an final frisbee membership workforce right here).

It was on a household journey to Canada that Luebke developed a brand new route. “I liked nature photography,” she remembers, “and I was trying to take a picture of this beautiful rose, but I was getting frustrated by my point-and-shoot camera. It just wasn’t capturing what I could see.” Her husband observed her frustration, and acquired her an SLR digital camera. Luebke started taking pictures courses with well-known nature photographer Victoria Dye at PVCC, after which with different lecturers as properly.

From her first courses in 2009, Luebke says she grew to become an increasing number of engrossed in nature pictures. Once she had a macro lens, she might get actually close-in pictures of the wildlife and vegetation she discovered fascinating. While she has finished some panorama pictures, it’s the unbelievable element and complicated fantastic thing about small issues that almost all usually attracts her consideration. “Photography makes you slow down,” she says, “and take the time to get the image right.”

The subsequent evolutionary step got here in 2013 in Sandbridge, Virginia, the place the household usually went on trip. “I was still new into photography,” Luebke remembers, “and I decided to get up early, before the kids got up, and go to the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge.” In the refuge’s wetlands, Luebke discovered herself within the midst of an enormous emergence of dragonflies. (These bugs come out of their ultimate larval stage in a course of that takes just a few hours; they must develop their flying expertise, after which begin trying to find meals—and mates.) “I started getting close to these insects, and they were amazing—the colors, the patterns.” 

Inspired, Luebke determined she needed to be taught extra about dragonflies. In 2014, she enrolled in coaching to qualify as a grasp naturalist, a nationwide program that’s sponsored in Virginia by state environmental businesses, and administered via the Virginia Cooperative Extension program run out of Virginia Tech and Virginia State University.

The grasp naturalist coaching is a basic introduction to pure historical past and ecology. Luebke discovered it useful, however her actual curiosity was dragonflies, so she purchased a guidebook authored by Odonata skilled Dennis Paulson. “I started with trying to learn the names [of the local species],” she says, however as she grew to become extra educated she additionally began being extra intrigued. “I found what I thought was a lilypad forktail, but my book said they weren’t found in Albemarle County.”

By now, Luebke was deep into the dragonfly world. She discovered an internet site referred to as Odonata Central, the place devotees can swap info, share sightings and pictures, and delve into dragonfly lore. But she nonetheless couldn’t discover a solution to her query: Was it potential that what she was seeing in Albemarle County was in reality a lilypad forktail?

In September 2014, Luebke determined to go to an skilled: Steve Roble, senior zoologist with the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Virginia Natural Heritage Program. She emailed Roble along with her lilypad forktail query, and he put her in contact with Albemarle County newbie odonatologist Jim Childress. Childress, one other individual with a very unrelated diploma and profession however a private fascination with dragonflies, had been accumulating specimens across the county for years. And sure, he had confirmed the presence of the lilypad forktail. 

Luebke teamed with Childress on figuring out the styles of Odonata they had been discovering domestically. “When we started, there were 95 species identified as being found here in Albemarle County,” she says. “Now we’re up to 114—77 dragonflies and 37 damselflies.” 

Surprisingly, their work is the closest factor out there as an official listing of central Virginia Odonata. Roble explains, “My agency [DCR’s Virginia Natural Heritage Program] maintains records of rare and uncommon plants and animals, but not common species. The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources attempts to maintain records of all vertebrate animals and some invertebrates, primarily mussels, snails, and crayfish. [But] no agency or private group keeps track of all of the many other invertebrate groups such as insects, spiders, millipedes, etc.”

Why does it matter what number of Odonata species we have now, or whether or not we’re dropping any? According to Roble, “Among other things, that information can help identify the types of wetland habitats that occur in the county and if some are rare or unusual and perhaps worthy of protection—some dragonfly and damselfly species have very specific habitat requirements, whereas others are more wetland habitat generalists. The river and stream species can help show which habitats are in the best, cleanest condition. Changes in abundance or species composition of dragonfly and damselfly populations and communities over time can perhaps be linked to changing conditions such as habitat degradation (or alteration) and climate warming.”

In 2015, Devin Floyd, co-founder and director of the Center for Urban Habitats (now the Piedmont Discovery Center) contacted Childress about conducting a dragonfly/damselfly survey at The Quarry Gardens. Floyd’s group was engaged on the event of the location, centered round two reclaimed soapstone quarries close to Schuyler, which now contains miles of strolling trails, greater than 40 galleries of various native plant communities, instructional amenities with a classroom and analysis lab, and a customer heart with reveals on flora, fauna, and the soapstone business in central Virginia. 

Childress requested Luebke to assist him on the survey, utilizing her pictures expertise. A 12 months later, after the survey was full, they continued working with Floyd’s group on organic assessments throughout the location. When Virginia Living journal did an article on the opening of The Quarry Gardens in 2017, Luebke’s pictures had been featured.

Luebke has been working with the Piedmont Discovery Center ever since. Now a senior discipline technician and wildlife photographer, Luebke does “plot work” initiatives, “a completely in-depth dive to define the plant community on a selected area of habitat,” she says. This means documenting all plant species in any respect ranges on the location from treetop to soil, together with physiographic info like soil, floor, slope, facet, and so forth. Whether for public lands or personal purchasers, the objective is an entire stock of what’s current with a view to assist restore, shield, and handle the sources there.

“Emily is a very detail-oriented person,” says Floyd. “Good photography is really about seeing, and noticing something that is both artful, likely overlooked, and also inspiring when shared. Her ability to notice that, and then capture it, is amazing. So her work is now utilized in two ways: She joins the field crew to do biological assessment, and while there she captures photographs of key species, habitat views, and staff working shots. [Her photos] are also often featured in our biological survey reports, online galleries, other publications, and in exhibitions of our work.” 

Luebke has been doing an increasing number of work with PDC, however that doesn’t imply she has given up her ardour for Odonata. She continues to hunt out dragonflies and damselflies in her walks across the county. Most of her photographic work now, she says, is documenting dragonflies. “My family knows, if we’re out on a hike, that Mom might get distracted if there’s dragonflies around.” 

How does one seize such an ephemeral creature? “It helps to know their habits,” Luebke says. “Some dragonfly species are perchers, so it’s easier to get them standing still. Others are hawkers—they fly up and back, but usually in a pattern so you can track them. It’s all about being patient, being observant—and being willing to look kind of odd.” But staring intently at branches with a macro lens or plunging via thickets in pursuit of those jewel-hued aviators doesn’t appear to face in her means.

Luebke additionally does a number of public schooling. Using each her data and her pictures, she has finished shows for Ivy Creek Natural Area, the native Sierra Club chapter, and grasp naturalist chapters within the space. Next up is a full-day symposium at The Quarry Gardens on August 23, with Childress and Ethan Tolman, a postdoctoral researcher at Virginia Tech, as audio system. The occasion may also embrace a path stroll and an off-site discipline journey to doc sightings for the Dragonfly Society of the Americas’ annual Odolympics.

A couple of years in the past, Luebke joined Childress on his ongoing mission to doc the Odonata species in Shenandoah National Park. The park’s information had been minimal, confirming fewer than 10 species—in spite of everything, the park covers mountainous terrain over eight counties with just a few workers biologists. Working with SNP workers, Childress acquired a allow to catch (whether or not to catch-and-release or gather) and doc species within the park. Luebke says they now have information on 61 species, and are nonetheless wanting. 

Chasing dragonflies is a great distance from superior arithmetic. But the “amateur” work that Luebke and others are doing makes an essential contribution, and one that might be unattainable to realize with the restricted sources of presidency businesses and tutorial establishments. 

“Emily is part of an army of highly skilled individuals that are very reliable contributors to science and conservation,” says Floyd. “Citizen science and volunteer efforts are such an important part of the conservation movement, and having knowledgeable and skilled people leading the way is [essential]. She is an example of how citizen science should function, and she brings tremendous added benefit to that work through her photography. Her art inspires others to get involved, and [that’s] critical for all scientific and conservation efforts if we are to inspire the general public to care and rise up to take the action needed.”

Odonata information

For these of us who aren’t entomologists, the order Odonata covers each dragonflies and damselflies—massive predatory flying bugs with clear wings. Dragonflies are normally greater and have massive compound eyes set shut collectively; at relaxation, their wings unfold up or out. Damselflies are slender, with eyes positioned aside; at relaxation, their wings are folded collectively alongside the physique. As adults, each are insectivores, specialised for searching on the wing, with legs designed to seize prey. (No, dragonflies and damselflies don’t chew people.) 

While they’ll vary via varied habitats, dragonflies and damselflies want water or aquatic vegetation to put their eggs. The growing bugs undergo a number of phases of aquatic or semi-aquatic larvae, referred to as nymphs, and relying on the species, the larval stage can final months or years. Once they emerge as adults, nevertheless, damselflies solely reside for just a few weeks and dragonflies for possibly a pair months—lengthy sufficient to mate and lay eggs.

Odonata are most typical and diverse within the tropics, however will be discovered as far north because the boreal forests of Europe, northern Asia, and North America. In many Asian cultures, dragonflies are thought of useful and even auspicious; in Europe, nevertheless, they’ve earned nicknames like horse stinger and satan’s darning needle. The solely continent with out dragonflies is Antarctica.

Fossils of Odonata ancestors have been discovered within the late Carboniferous age, making them one of many earliest types of winged bugs. One prehistoric dragonfly had a wingspan of as much as 27 inches, whereas immediately the most important residing dragonfly is the Central American helicopter dragonfly, with a wingspan of seven.5 inches.